Anand asked:
> Can anyone tell me about how to go about worker level training and
> the related subjects, articles and links and I am planning to conduct
> training for workers in my company in the training room specifically
> apart from the shop floor.

I have found over the last 18 years of training that the above question
seems to be an important one in many organizations. Since this is a
"training" question I will address it as such with a series of questions
and not from a "coaching" perspective. However, if I was live, ont-to-one
I would use this series of questions as I coach this client to open his
eyes to the possibilities. In this coaching engagement I would also offer
resources as listed below) as back up material to the coaching
interaction...this opens the door to a more "blended" approach to my
coaching.

Here are a few questions that may assist this client as the process of
developing a training program for this group begins. You will find the
links useful in assisting others. All of the resources were pulled from
CTI links and databases of which you will find a rich supply of materials
and additional links: http://tinyurl.com/5ccu5

I hope this helps,

Doug Constant
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Training-Ideas/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Have I done a needs analysis?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
An Assessment of Training Needs
http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~lsherry/pubs/needs/index.html

Conducting a Training Needs Assessment
http://www.amxi.com/amx_mi30.htm

Training Needs Assessment
http://www.doi.gov/hrm/pmanager/ed3.html

Training Needs Assessment
http://adulted.about.com/od/trngneedsasst/

Training Needs Assessment - Linking Training to Your Business Objectives
http://www.decpoint.com/twotrainingneeds.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What specific employee needs should be addressed? ("people skills" ie.
conflict, teambuilding, change, coaching or "technical skills" process
orientation, learning environments, OJT, system problems or improvements)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

75 popular categories of topics:
http://www.managementhelp.org/
Benefits and Compensation, Career Development, Communications
(Intrprsnl), Communications (Writing), Computers, Internet & Web,
Coordinating Activities, Creativity and Innovation, Crisis Management,
Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service, Employee Performance,
Evaluations (many kinds), Facilities Management, Group Performance, Group
Skills, Interpersonal Skills, Leadership (Introduction), Leadership
Development, Management (Introduction), Management Development,
Organizational Change, Org'l Communications, Organizational Performance,
Organizing (many kinds), Perf. Mgmnt (basics), Personal Development,
Personal Productivity, Planning (many kinds), Policies (Personnel),
Problem Solving / Decisions, Product/Service Mgmnt, Project Management,
Program Management, Quality Management, Strategic Planning, Supervision,
Supervisoral Development, Systems Thinking

CTI Links Section:
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Training-Ideas/links


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What specific organizational development initives have you started or
plan on starting? Will these have an impact on this group?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Organizational Development (OD)
http://tinyurl.com/5rbj2

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Are you qualified to train this group?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Training and Development Links
http://www.managementhelp.org/trng_dev/trng_dev.htm

Organizational Design Links
http://tinyurl.com/4tbh3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Will there be line-workers moving into leadership roles out of this
group? Is leadership training or shifting to leadership necessary?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://tinyurl.com/4fowl

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What Methods will you use in training?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Training and Development
http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/training_and_developme

________________________________________________________________
The best thing to hit the Internet in years - Juno SpeedBand!
Surf the Web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER!
Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!

[Please post if this is of interest to your members.]

__________________________________________

              Technology Grant News

              Technology Resource News
__________________________________________

The latest edition of Technology Grant News and Technology Resource News -
Electronic Bulletin is available.  For nonprofits, towns & cities, libraries &
museums, and K-20 schools, colleges & universities. For information on
subscriptions and obtaining the Fall 2004 issue:
http://www.technologygrantnews.com/technology-funding.html



Technology Grant News - Vol. 6, No. 4, Fall  2004



Featured in this issue:

1. Major Funding: Health-Related Information Technology & Informatics Grants;
Best Buy Teach Grants; Christopher Columbus Foundation Grants



2. City Grants; Library & Museum Grants: Assoc. American Museums, Council on
Library & Information Resources, Health Information Sciences Scholarship; IMLS,
Museums for America; SIRSI Corporation Technology Grant



3. Innovative Use of Technology by Nonprofits: AAUW; Bronx Cash Register Grants;
Christina; Dell;  Google; Jim Mullen Foundation; NEH; RealNetworks; SalesForce;
Webb Foundation



4. Special Supplement: Health-Related Information Technology & Informatics
Grants for Libraries, Nonprofits, Colleges & Universities; Government Agencies:
Internet Access to Digital Libraries; Informatics for Disaster Management;
Information Systems Grants; Integrated Advanced Information Management;
Biomedical Information Science & Technology Initiative; Biomedical Informatics
Research Grants & Scholarships and more.



5. For K-20 - Schools, Colleges & Universities, Post-Graduate: Advanced
Technological Education; Centers for Teaching; Digital Archiving; Embedded
Hybrids; Highly Dependable Computing; Interagency Education Research Initiative;
Nanoscale Science & Engineering Education; Universal Access



6. For K-12: Disneyhand; Inspiration Software; Kids in Need; MET & NCTM Grants;
Financial Education Grants; Explorer Schools; Delta Education; Toyota Tapestry;
Vernier Software; Texas Instruments; YES Competition

Applications are currently available for funding announced in this issue. 
Application Deadlines run from mid-September - February for funding featured in
this issue. Fall 2004, Vol 6, Number 4, 12-pages, published 4 times a year, ISSN
1534-5785.







Technology Resource News - Electronic Bulletin
Fall 2004   Volume 6, Number 4

Published & distributed along with each issue of Technology Grant News



This Issue's Topics:



1. Towns, Cities & States - E-Government Resources

CTG Survey Results on Digital Government - Report

Electronic Government - Call for Papers

Harvard Releases New e-Rulemaking Report - Report

Mapping Entrepreneurial Activity Across Rural America - Report



2. Library & Museum Resources

How is the Health of Our Heritage - Library Call for Information

Information Technologies for Libraries - Call for Papers

IMLS Technology and Digitization Survey  Report - Report

Library Tools - New Free Software

Museums and the  Web 2005 - Call for Papers



3. Nonprofit Resources

Community Technology Review - Electronic Journal

Computer Refurbishers Listserv - Listserv

e-Health Awards - Award Recognition

  "Guide to Community Multimedia Centres" - Handbook

Health Information Communication Technologies  - Internet Resource

Innnovation Networkt Organizational Assessment Tool (OAT) - Internet Resource

  "The Map of Creativity"  - Internet Resource

"The Mental Health Professional and the New Technologies" -  Review Copy

"Network-Centric Thinking: The Internet's Challenge to Ego-Centric Institutions"
- Online article
Nonprofit Cultural Funding: Federal Opportunities

NPower NY  Technology Service Corps - Review

OpenOffice Suite - Free software

Psychology WWW Virtual Library  - Internet Resource

SustainIT Newsletter - Electronic Newsletter

Tele-medicine & Telehealth Resources

The Webby Awards - Award Recognition

WebHealthCentre.com - Internet Resource



4.    K-20 -- Kindergarten - College & University Resources

Advanced Placement Digital Library for Biology, Physics, Chemistry - Internet
Resource
  Carnegie Mellon University Open Learning Initiative - Teacher Resource

Community Technology Center -  Teaching Resource

Cool Cosmos - California Institute of Technology - Internet Resource

Educause - Technology in Education E-Journal

EdVisions Schools - Educators Creating EdVisions Schools - Links to Resources

Engineering Design Challenges Program Available for Teachers

Eisenhower Mathematics & Science Consortia Report - Report

Gobal Educator Newsletter - Teacher Resource

iEARN Professional Development Global Teaching - Learning - Teaching Resource

Keeboo E-Book

NSF  "Best  Practice Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology" - Report

Nanodot: Nanotechnology  Discussion of Emerging Technologies - Journal - Website

Nobel e-Museum: Conflict Map [Macromedia Shockwave] - Teaching Resource

Smithsonian: Spotlight on Science - Electronic Newsletter

STELLA Dynamic Modeling Systems - Teaching Resource

Technology Software & Websites for Pre-Schoolers

TechYES - Student Technology Literacy Certification - AfterSchool Program
Resource

WUN eLearning Portal - Resources for Distributed Learning



5.    Conferences

American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIST),

Association for Library & Information Science Education

Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education

E-Health Conference

Global Learning Conference 2004

Information Resources Management Association (IRMA) International Conference

International Conference on Computers in Education

Internet Librarian 2004

Library & Information Technology Association: LITA Nation Forum

Museums and the Web 2005

NAWeb 2004

Netspeed 2004 Library Technology Conference

N-TEN Conferences

Online Education

Social Enterprise Alliance 6th Gathering

Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International
Conference
TechMission Technology & Ministry National Conference

Technology Affinity Group Conference

University of South Carolina Technology Conference

Annual Program Meeting of the Council on Social Work Education

Virtual Reference Desk Conference

Winter Institute for Learning Assistance Professionals







Questions? Comments. Contact us at service@...










[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

We would like to inform you about the publication of the on-line journal
Interactive Educational Multimedia, issue number 9, which is devoted to
multimedia technologies applied to education.

You can visit IEM at http://www.ub.es/multimedia/iem.
In this edition of IEM, which includes a monographic on Constructivist
Approaches, the selected articles are:
Monographic  Articles:

The digital gap: gender and computer games, by Anna Escofet, María José
Rubio
Education as the creation of microcultures. From the local community to
the virtual network, by José Luis Lalueza, Marc Bria, Isabel Crespo,
Sònia Sánchez, Maria José Luque
The virtual construction of the mind: the role of educational
psychology, by Carles Monereo

Digital Literacies, by José L. Rodríguez Illera

Peer-Reviewed  Articles:

A comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of IT based education
and the implications upon students, by John O’Donoghue

Critical perspectives on curriculum and ICTs: the 3D model, literacy and
computer games, by Catherine Beavis.


Book Review:

Online education,  M. Victoria Martín

Next issue of IEM will be published by April 2005.
Please, remember that our subscription is  free.
Thank you very much for your attention,

Multimedia Teaching and Learning Research Group, University of Barcelona
(ICE)
http://www.ub.es/multimedia
Interactive Educational Multimedia journal
  <mailto:iem@...> iem@...



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Please post if appropriate for your members.

____________________________________________


              Technology Grant News

____________________________________________

The latest edition of Technology Grant News and Technology Grant & Resource News
- Electronic is available for nonprofits, towns and cities,   nonprofits,
libraries & museums, and schools & universities. Technology Resource News is
Free with TGN Electronic. For information on subscriptions and obtaining the
Winter 2005 issue: http://www.technologygrantnews.com/technology-funding.html



Technology Grant News

Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2005


Special Opportunities:

   The Museum of Technology Awards;  "Digital Visions"  Educator Opportunity;
Albert Einstein Scholar Educator Opportunity

City Grants, Library & Museum Grants:

   Technology Infrastructure for Facilities Grants; American Library Association
Grants; 21st Century Museums Leadership Grant

Non Profit Funding:

  Graphics Software & Cash Grants; NonProfits Encouraged to Enter the Media,
Graphics, and Broadcasting Mix; Grassroots.org; Staples Job Skills; Access
through Technology Grants; Verizon Grants

Article:

  "You Always Remember Your First," Grantwriter Dru Beattie

  K-20, Post Graduate, College & University:

  Advanced Technological Education, CyberTrust, Networking Technology & Systems;
Research on Gender in Science and Engineering, Science of Learning Centers;
Science & Technology Studies, and others ;   Science & Engineering Fellowship;
Semiconductor Electronics Graduate Fellowships

  K-20 Educator, Equipment & Curriculum Development Grants:

   Film in Schools Grants;, Enhancing Education Through Technology Grants; 
CAPCO; Teacher Grants; Graphics Education, Hewlett-Packard, Innovation Grants;
Unsung Heroes; MIT Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Institute for Girls
and others.



Questions?

service@...


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

**Congressional Research Awards Announcement**

DEADLINE: Proposals must be postmarked no later than February 1, 2005

The Dirksen Congressional Center invites applications for grants
totaling $35,000 in 2005 to fund research on congressional leadership
and the U.S. Congress. The competition is open to individuals with a
serious interest in studying Congress. Political scientists,
historians, biographers, scholars of public administration or
American studies, and journalists are among those eligible. The
Center encourages graduate students to apply and awards a significant
portion of the funds for dissertation research. Undergraduate or pre-
Ph.D. study, research teams of two or more individuals, and
organizations are not eligible.

There is no standard application form. Applicants are responsible for
showing the relationship between their work and the awards program
guidelines. Applications are accepted at any time. Incomplete
applications will NOT be forwarded to the screening committee for
consideration.

All application materials must be postmarked on or before February 1,
2005. Awards will be announced in March 2005. Complete information
about eligibility and application procedures may be found at The
Center's Web site:
http://www.dirksencenter.org/print_grants_CRAs.htm. Frank Mackaman is
the program officer -- fmackaman@....

The Center, named for the late Senate Minority Leader Everett M.
Dirksen, is a private, nonpartisan, nonprofit research and
educational organization devoted to the study of Congress and its
leaders. Since 1978, the Congressional Research Awards (formerly the
Congressional Research Grants) program has paid out $620,000 to
support 325 projects.

Please post if appropriate for your members.

____________________________________________


              Technology Grant News

____________________________________________

The latest edition of Technology Grant News and Technology Grant & Resource News
- Electronic is available for nonprofits, towns and cities,   nonprofits,
libraries & museums, and schools & universities. Technology Resource News is
Free with TGN Electronic. For information on subscriptions and obtaining the
Winter 2005 issue: http://www.technologygrantnews.com/technology-funding.html



Technology Grant News

Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2005


Special Opportunities:

   The Museum of Technology Awards;  "Digital Visions"  Educator Opportunity;
Albert Einstein Scholar Educator Opportunity

City Grants, Library & Museum Grants:

   Technology Infrastructure for Facilities Grants; American Library Association
Grants; 21st Century Museums Leadership Grant

Non Profit Funding:

  Graphics Software & Cash Grants; NonProfits Encouraged to Enter the Media,
Graphics, and Broadcasting Mix; Grassroots.org; Staples Job Skills; Access
through Technology Grants; Verizon Grants

Article:

  "You Always Remember Your First," Grantwriter Dru Beattie

  K-20, Post Graduate, College & University:

  Advanced Technological Education, CyberTrust, Networking Technology & Systems;
Research on Gender in Science and Engineering, Science of Learning Centers;
Science & Technology Studies, and others ;   Science & Engineering Fellowship;
Semiconductor Electronics Graduate Fellowships

  K-20 Educator, Equipment & Curriculum Development Grants:

   Film in Schools Grants;, Enhancing Education Through Technology Grants; 
CAPCO; Teacher Grants; Graphics Education, Hewlett-Packard, Innovation Grants;
Unsung Heroes; MIT Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Institute for Girls
and others.



Questions?

service@...


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

** CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: Congress in the Classroom® 2005 **

DEADLINE: March 15, 2005

Congress in the Classroom® --
http://www.dirksencenter.org/print_programs_CongressClassroom.htm --
is a national, award-winning education program now in its 13th year.
Sponsored by The Dirksen Congressional Center, the workshop is
dedicated to the exchange of ideas and information on teaching about
Congress.

Congress in the Classroom® is designed for high school teachers
who teach U.S. history, government, civics, political science, or
social studies. Forty teachers from throughout the country will be
selected in 2005 to take part in the program.

You will gain experience with The Center's educational Web site,
CongressLink - http://www.congresslink.org -- which features online
access to lesson plans, student activities, historical materials,
related Web sites, and subject matter experts.

Throughout the program you will work with national experts as well as
colleagues from across the nation. This combination of firsthand
knowledge and peer-to-peer interaction will give you new ideas,
materials, and a professionally enriching experience.

In sum, the workshop consists of two types of sessions: those that
focus on recent research and scholarship about Congress (and don't
always have an immediate application in the classroom) and those
geared to specific ways to teach students about Congress.

The 2005 program theme will be "Our New Congress -- the 109th."
Confirmed session titles are:

* A View from Capitol Hill
* The Importance of Teaching Democracy Appreciation
* George W. Bush's Second Term: What's in Store for Congress?
* Congress Has a Humorous Side
* How Congress Members Decide (Hint: It Looks Like a Game of
Billiards)
* Teaching Congress Through Visuals
* The Struggle to Reform Congress and Its Consequences
* The Civil Rights Act of 1964: Using Document Analysis to
Tell the Story
* How to Get Your Point Across to Congress Members
* The Dirksen Center Web Suite as a Resource for Teachers
* Congressional Insight: A Computer Simulation of a Member's First
Term in the House of Representatives, and more.

The workshop will take place from Monday, July 25 through July 28,
2005, at the Radisson Hotel in Peoria, Illinois. Teachers who are
selected for the program will be responsible for (1) a non-refundable
$135 registration fee (required to confirm acceptance after notice of
selection) and (2) transportation to and from Peoria, Illinois. Many
school districts will pay all or a portion of these costs.

The Center pays for three nights lodging at the headquarters hotel
(providing a single room for each participant), workshop materials,
local transportation, all but three meals, and presenter honoraria
and expenses. The Center spends between $25,000 and $30,000 to host
the program each year

Those teachers who are not selected for the program will have an
opportunity to register for the Web-based Congress in the Classroom
course.

The deadline for applications is March 15, 2005. Enrollment is
competitive and limited to forty. Selection will be determined by The
Center. Individuals will be notified of their acceptance status by
April 1, 2005.

Take a look at The Dirksen Center Web site -
http://www.dirksencenter.org/print_programs_CongressClassroom.htm --
to see what participants say about the program and to learn more
about the scheduled sessions and presenters.

If you are interested in registering for the Congress in the
Classroom® 2005 workshop, you can complete an online registration
form found at:
http://www.dirksencenter.org/programs_CiCapplication.htm.

Excerpt from the CSS Internet News.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------

10 things that make you forward e-mails

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4182395.stm

The world's inboxes are crammed with e-mails containing jokes, pictures,
movies, tests or games and which are sent to millions of people within a
few hours. They're not just the preserve of skilled hobbyists, they are
increasingly part of advertisers' strategies to create so-called "viral"
campaigns. What is it about the best e-mails which makes them so
compelling?

1. They must be funny. And, for some reason, it's a fairly coarse sort
of humour which does best. Pete Brown, who runs Boreme.com, a site which
collates the best viral e-mails, says: "Sport and sex do very well -
really because it's the laddish humour which seems to be most popular.
They work well for homemade or commercial e-mails, especially if they
are crude or gross."

The Wilkinson/Beckham picture from summer 2004

2. If they're not funny, then they have to be topical or somehow
"shocking, clever, strange or surprising". Topical ones are usually
homemade, simply because professionally made e-mails take longer to
produce. A good example was David Beckham taking tips from Jonny
Wilkinson on how to kick the ball over the bar, says Pete Brown. "There
was a thought bubble over Beckham's head which registered simply
'ball... bar... over... win'."

It worked well after England lost to Portugal in Euro 2004 - Beckham
having missed a crucial penalty - because it was done quickly, he says.

3. E-mails must be a bit risky to be shocking or funny, says Chris
Hassell of creative agency DS.Emotion, which makes viral e-mails for
advertisers. Some advertisers will want to have a viral e-mail for
people to send round as part of their campaigns, he says, but rein it
back too much and "it ends up being just like a TV advert - and who
wants to send that round?"

4. But not too risky. People know that employers can - and sometimes do
- monitor people's inboxes. Anything that is too explicit, particularly
sexually, is unlikely to be forwarded very far.

5. They must be in the right format. In the early days, most e-mails
which would get sent round would be in plain text.

Doctored photographs came later, but Pete Brown says the growth of
movies has been marked in the last year. "That's linked to the rise of
broadband, probably. But people's expectations about interactivity have
increased too, and if the viral is a game, it's got to be good."

6. You've got to want to be associated with it. The whole point of
sending an e-mail on to a friend is that it becomes a reflection on the
sender, says Pete Brown. "A good e-mail that you pass on to your friends
says something about you. You are choosing to pass on this particular
joke to this particular friend. It partly says that you care about them
to bother keeping open a channel of communication. It also says
something about the type of person you are."


7. If it's a commercially-produced e-mail, then it's got to be for the
right sort of brand. Chris Hassell thinks Ford made a mistake by
distancing itself from an advert which showed a cat being decapitated by
a sunroof. Following complaints from animal protection charities, the
car giant said the film was an agency's idea they had never endorsed or
intended for release. But Hassell says it would have done little to the
brand's image among young people to have said nothing.

8. If movies have come from an advertising agency, the branding must be
very subtle. "People aren't stupid - they're not going to send round
something which is basically a TV advert," says Hassell. Brown adds that
the e-mailed game which impressed him most was actually quite difficult
to complete, and it was only when players reached the final level that
they discovered it had come from Dyson.

9. Don't be politically correct says Brown. "We have never found a PC
viral e-mail," he says. If it's about politicians, then it cannot show
any respect.

10. Ignore points one to nine - Brown says finding the right e-mail
which will go round the world depends on having the X-factor, something
novel which will grab people's attention and distract them long enough
from their work.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Also in this issue:

- Bill Gates plots a Windows future
- Software re-enacts Rwanda's genocide
- Small science to be big in 2005
- Chinese 'to overtake US net use'
- 'Evil twin' fear for wireless net
- 10 things that make you forward e-mails
-  Mass exodus from Indian islands
- Safe E-Mailing for Dummies
- Military Reloads with Nanotech
- Inside Info on Kryptos' Codes
- Army Prepares 'Robo-Soldier' for Iraq

Member: Association for International Business
-------------------------------

Excerpt from CSS Internet News (tm)  ,-~~-.____
For subscription details email      / |  '     \
jwalker@... with              (   )        0
SUBINFO CSSINEWS in the             \_/-, ,----'
subject line.                          ====           //
                                        /  \-'~;    /~~~(O)
"On the Internet no one               /  __/~|   /       |
knows you're a dog"                 =(  _____| (_________|

-------------------------------







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Excerpt from the CSS Internet News

------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------

Welcome to Tsunami!

  <http://www.geophys.washington.edu/sunami/welcome.html>
http://www.geophys.washington.edu/sunami/welcome.html

Tsunami! was originally a World-Wide Web site that had been developed to
provide general information about tsunamis. Much of the site and its
original information is now somewhat out of date, and in fact the site
is currently undergoing overhaul. Due to the increased interest
following the recent Asian tsunami, we have provided links to off-site
information below. We have also put together an image (viewable to the
right by clicking on it) that illustrates the basic differences between
tsunamis and "regular" wind-generated waves.

The old site and its information can be accessed by following the link
near the bottom of the page.

MORE....

-----------------------------------------------------

U.S. Geological Survey

  <http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/c1187/> http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/c1187/

Circular 1187
Version 1.0

Surviving a Tsunami-Lessons from Chile, Hawaii, and Japan

Compiled by Brian F. Atwater, Marco Cisternas V., Joanne Bourgeois,
Walter C. Dudley, James W. Hendley II, and Peter H. Stauffer

1999

Prepared in cooperation with Universidad Austral de Chile, the
University of Tokyo, the University of Washington, the Geological Survey
of Japan, and the Pacific Tsunami Museum

Compiled by Brian F. Atwater, Marco Cisternas V.1, Joanne Bourgeois2,
Walter C. Dudley3, James W. Hendley II, and Peter H.

Actions that saved lives, and actions that cost lives, as recounted by
eyewitnesses to the tsunami from the largest earthquake ever
measured-the magnitude 9.5 earthquake in Chile on May 22, 1960. In
interviews several decades later, people in Chile, Hawaii, and Japan
recall the tsunami

Their accounts contain lessons on tsunami survival:

# Many Will Survive the Earthquake
# Heed Natural Warnings
# Heed Official Warnings
# Expect Many Waves
# Head for High Ground and Stay There
# Abandon Belongings
# Don't Count on the Roads
# Go to an Upper Floor or Roof of a Building
# Climb a Tree
# Climb onto Something that Floats
# Expect the Waves to Leave Debris
# Expect Quakes to Lower Coastal Land
# Expect Company

MORE....

---------------------------------------------

Pacific Tsunami Museum

  <http://www.tsunami.org/> http://www.tsunami.org

"Suddenly I heard a shout, 'Big wave!' The streetlights around us
exploded almost in the same instant. I looked up and saw a locally well
known fishing boat coming up over the Wailoa Bridge"
-- Susan Maeda Veriato on the 1960 tsunami in Hilo, as told to her son
Travis

Areas to Explore:

What's New Latest Museum events, stories, and exhibits
What we're about! Museum vision & purpose
Frequently asked questions What is a tsunami?
Programs Education & Science
Archives Museum collections
Become a member! Support tsunami education
Museum store Mail order shopping
Tsunami links Browse other tsunami sites
Hilo photographs Aerial Photographs of the Hilo area

MORE....

-----------------------------------------------------

Header Tsunami Research Program - Stretched Model image

  <http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tsunami> http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tsunami

Site Map
(includes pull-down menu text)

Tsunami Event
26 Dec 2004
PMEL Event Page
Includes Modeling Results
Compilation of
Web-Links
NOAA TOP STORY
December 26, 2004
NOAA REACTS QUICKLY TO INDONESIAN TSUNAMI
Jan 10, 2005
NOAA SCIENTISTS ABLE TO MEASURE TSUNAMI HEIGHT FROM SPACE
NOAA animation of Indonesia tsunami
Deep-Ocean Assessment and Report of Tsunamis
Mooring System (DART)
Animation

more...

----------------------------------------------------------

Tsunami Relief

  <http://www.google.com/tsunami_relief.html>
http://www.google.com/tsunami_relief.html

Like so many others around the world, we at Google are following the
devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami that has hit many parts
of Asia and east Africa. Below are a few sites already set up to provide
information and handle donations for victims throughout the region. Our
thoughts are with everyone who has been affected.

Information


Donations
. Google News coverage     . Action Against Hunger
. ReliefWeb     . American Red Cross  (via Amazon)
. Aid groups (via CNN)     . American Jewish World Service
. Relief organizations (via USAID)     . AmeriCares
. Tsunami help blog     . Asia Foundation
. Wikipedia     . BAPS Care International
       . CARE
       . Direct Relief International
       . GOAL
       . Habitat for Humanity International
       . International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
       . Islamic Relief Worldwide
       . Karuna Trust
       . Network for Good
       . Oxfam International (US page)
       . Quarters >From Kids: Tsunami Relief and Rebuilding
       . Sarvodaya
       . Save the Children
       . UNICEF (US page) (via Paypal)
       . World Food Programme (UN)
       . World Vision

-------------------------------------------------




Member: Association for International Business

-------------------------------

Excerpt from CSS Internet News (tm) ,-~~-.____

For subscription details email / | ' \

jwalker@... with ( ) 0

SUBINFO CSSINEWS in the \_/-, ,----'

subject line. ==== //

/ \-'~; /~~~(O)

"On the Internet no one / __/~| / |

knows you're a dog" =( _____| (_________|




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Excerpt from the CSS Internet News

-----------------------------------


New virus masquerades as news headlines

Friday, January 21, 2005 Posted: 10:19 AM EST (1519 GMT)

  <http://www.cnn.com/> http://www.cnn.com

(CNN) -- Researchers have identified a new computer virus that
masquerades as news headlines from CNN's Web site.

Sophos, an anti-virus firm, says the virus -- identified as Crowt-A --
pulls headlines, subject lines and other content from CNN.com. Once
opened, the virus can then scan the user's address book and try to email
itself to those users.

The virus' subject line and attachment share the same name, Sophos
researchers say, but change continually to match headlines from
CNN.com's home page.

"Virus writers are always looking for new tricks to entice innocent
computer users into running their malicious code," Carole Theriault,
security consultant at Sophos, said in a statement. "This latest ploy
feeds on people's desire for the latest news."

Although the number of PCs possibly infected was not immediately known,
Sophos said there has been only a small number of sightings.

In addition to emailing itself to other users, the virus also installs a
"backdoor Trojan function," according to Sophos. This function can pick
up and send data such as keystrokes to a remote user -- a practice
sometimes used by hackers to obtain sensitive information such as
passwords.

Last May, a fast-spreading computer "worm" known as Sasser wreaked havoc
on computer users worldwide, affecting several businesses, banks and
government offices.

Users of the Windows operating systems reported sluggish machines and
computers that quit or rebooted for no reason.

Anti-virus companies estimate that more than 1 million PCs were
infected.

While a computer virus requires some sort of human intervention to be
launched, such as opening an e-mail, a worm takes off on its own. Sasser
spread through a Windows vulnerability known as LSASS, or Local Security
Authority Subsystem Service -- hence the name Sasser.

Sasser would scan random Internet protocol addresses until it found a
vulnerable system. Then it would copy itself into the Windows directory
as an executable file, and would launch the next time the computer is
booted. All that searching for a new "victim" would slow things down
across the Internet.

----------------------------------------------

Also in this issue:

- Iraq blog spat leads to web chaos
- New virus masquerades as news headlines
- Review: Microsoft Anti-Spyware Ineffective
- Software Turns Phone Into Mobile Command
- Google Releases Photo Organizing Software
- Global warming caused mass extinction, studies suggest
- Firefox gains more market shares, IE in trouble
- Worm Steals CNN Headlines To Stay Timely, Fool Users
- Amazon Web services fan out
- Mars makes mystery of meteorites
- Titan: The New World
- FBI Scraps Web Wiretap Software


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------------------------------


Fighting the rising tide of spam

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4201037.stm

By Jon Stewart

BBC Go Digital

Spam is a problem for everyone

If you have an e-mail account, you will almost certainly receive spam
but are the measures to try and stop it actually blocking our legitimate
messages too?

For some people receiving spam just means having to delete unwanted
messages, for others it can make their account effectively unusable.

Figures from a global mail filtering company, MessageLabs, show that 73%
of the 12.6 billion e-mails they checked during 2004 were identified as
spam.

Often when you sign up with an internet service provider they provide an
e-mail-filtering service, which may be automatically set to quarantine
spam.

Some organisations are taking a fairly blunt instrument approach to the
problem

Paul Wood, MessageLabs

The "fine tuning" of that filter can mean the difference between getting
too many messages offering to sell you things you never knew you wanted,
and losing valid messages.

The problem is that identifying spam is not easy.

"We use a variety of methods," Paul Wood, chief information security
analyst for MessageLabs, told the BBC World Service programme Go
Digital.

"Very often we can signature spam in the way we can signature viruses.

'Fuzzy fingerprint'

"So once we have a signature of that particular spam, it can be applied
to other e-mails and therefore maybe we can stop them because we have
seen them before. It's a kind of 'fuzzy fingerprint'."

The net's big players are getting serious about fighting spam

These sorts of content filters can be very effective, but they can also
filter newsletters, or other bulk e-mails to which you may have
subscribed.

"We can also look at the header information. We can see the IP address
that spam e-mail has come from - do we have any history about that
address?"

The IP address is the unique number given to a computer when it goes
online and security firms can look at this to determine if the
originating computer has a track record of sending spam.

E-mail headers contain information on who sent an e-mail and when, and
who it was addressed to.They also contain information on the chain of
servers that were used in delivering it.

Forged

This information can be forged, which is a fairly sure indication the
message is spam, and the sender does not want to be traced.

"If we look more closely at the actual content of the e-mail, if there's
a link to a website, then do we know anything about that website?" said
Mr Wood.

Other techniques spam filters use include a statistical analysis of
keywords within an e-mail.

Bayesian filters calculate the probability of a message being spam.

It is a very robust way of filtering, and it is adaptable.

The filter is 'trained' by the user, who marks messages held in a
quarantine area as 'spam' or 'not spam', and future false positives are
reduced.

There are simple techniques too, such as black-listing and
white-listing. All messages from a sender who is black-listed are
blocked, or only messages from white-listed senders are allowed through.


Some very simple steps can be taken to help you avoid spam.

Many people set up two or more e-mail addresses. One, the 'real' one, is
only given to people you want to hear from.

Ignored

The other one is used on the internet, in chat rooms, on forums,
anywhere spammers are likely to pick it up.

All messages sent to that account can then be ignored.

One of the golden rules regarding spam is never to reply to a spam
message.

E-mail addresses they send to are often generated automatically, and
replying will just confirm that your account is active.

The same often applies to any link within an e-mail offering to remove
you from a mailing list. There is a good chance that it will actually do
the opposite.

But it is a constant battle, as spammers are always finding ways around
the filters, so it is a case of getting the balance right.

"That's the key problem anti-spam organisations are facing," according
to Mr Wood.

"You can have very aggressive rules which mean you block 99.9% of spam,
but what that means is you'll also block a higher proportion of the
non-spam."

-------------------------

Also in this issue.....

- ISNA official calls termination of site violation of international law

- Man jailed over tsunami e-mails
- Savvy searchers fail to spot ads
- Search wars - which is the best?
- The Dei today
- Academics give lessons on blogs
- Fighting the rising tide of spam UN chief's
- Rwanda genocide regret
- Text message record smashed again
- Survey: Thousands leave laptops, mobiles in cabs
- Experts: Cyber-crime bigger threat than cyber-terror
- Sex spammers targeted by feds
- Police: New version of old scam exploits tsunami
- FBI cuts Carnivore Internet probe
- Teen Helps Build Firefox Web Browser

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--------------------------------

Security Watch: Blocking and Beating Gator

http//abcnews.go.com

It's not a virus or, officially spyware, but Gain's Gator plagues many
users with its tactics. We tell you how to remove it.

Our top "threat" is a commercial, if often ill-regarded product. Read
about Gator in our Top Threat section.

The top 10 viruses tracked by McAfee include several that have been
around a while, some for months. See the full list in our Top 10 Threats
section.

Network applications dominate this week's list of top vulnerabilities.
See the list in our Top 5 Vulnerabilities section.

Phishing attacks usually appear to come from a vendor, but not this
week's top phish. See a new angle on the eBay phish scam in our Top
Phish section.

Serious vulnerabilities were announced in products from Oracle,
RealNetworks and Microsoft. Get the details in our Security Alerts and
Updates section.

What is an Internet Explorer toolbar? Find out in JargonWatch.

Top "Threat: " SPYW_GATOR.C

Editors Note: For this edition of Security Watch, we've put "threat" in
quotation marks, so we can examine a commercial piece of software that
is developed by Gain, a legitimate company, and runs on thousands of
machines around the world. The problem, as many users and antivirus
software companies see it, is that while Gator often runs with the
permission of the end user, it has many spyware-like capabilities. As a
result, many end users and other companies tasked with protecting our
systems consider it a "threat".

Executive Summary
Name: SPYW_GATOR.C (Trend Micro naming)
Publisher: Gator Advertising Information Network (GAIN)
Affects: Windows XP/2000/2003/NT/ME/98/95

What it does: SPYW_GATOR.C is usually bundled as an advertisement
component with other software, mainly through consent by shareware and
other free applications. The installer file is named CMESYS.EXE.

It downloads and installs other components of the Gator application. It
also displays popup advertisements as well as analyzes system usage. It
can also monitor all the Web sites that a user visits and sends
information to Gain Company systems. Gator/GAIN can download and execute
arbitrary code from its controlling server, which is used as an update
feature of their program.

Gator adds the following registry keys and values:

       HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Gator.com

       HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Gator.com\AppInfo\CME
           o event = "Global\GainAppRunning_CME"
           o timeout_secs_ui = "dword:00000014"
           o timeout_secs_full = "dword:0000003c"
           o Restart = ""
           o Lockfiles = "\cmesys.exe;\gtools.dll"

Antivirus and antispyware products can generally detect Gator and the
several variants of it.

How to avoid it: Carefully examine prompts and permission forms when
installing software, especially free software downloaded on the
Internet. SPYW_GATOR.C and many applications like it specifically ask
for permission to install. Also run antivirus software and antispyware
software and keep them updated.

How to remove it: Antivirus and antispyware applications can generally
remove this Gator. But removal instructions are also available from Gain
on their web site.

Top 10 threats as reported by AVERT (McAfee) for January 23, 2005

Like the songs on a classic rock radio station, the selections on the
Top Threats list don't change much anymore. McAfee's top viruses include
some, like Netsky.P, that are almost a year old.

W32/Bagle.ai@MM
W32/Mydoom.ah@MM
W32/Sober.j@MM
W32/Bagle.aa@MM
W32/Bagle.bb@mm
W32/Bagle.bd@MM
W32/Zafi.d@MM
W32/Netsky.ag@MM
W32/Netsky.p@MM
W32/Netsky.q@MM

Top 5 vulnerabilities as reported by ThreatFocus for Tuesday January
25th, 2005

Date  Title  Severity
1/18/2005  Oracle [Critical Patch Update - January 2005]  High

1/18/2005  Oracle [Multiple high risk vulnerabilities in Oracle RDBMS
10g/9i]  High

1/18/2005  ISS [BlackICE - 3.6.czn - New Version Release]  Low
1/19/2005  Cisco [Security Advisory: Vulnerability in Cisco IOS Embedded
Call Processing Solutions]  High

1/20/2005  Red Hat [Updated php packages fix security issues]  Medium

Top Phish of the Week as listed by MailFrontier for Tuesday January
24th, 2005

eBay-Phishing for Answers

Name: eBay-Phishing for Answers
Date: January, 2005
Type: Phishing - Personal and Financial Information

Subject Line: Question from eBay Member

Description: The user receives the fraudulent e-mail (click here to see
a sample). The message itself is not from eBay, but from the purported
buyer from a recent auction. The e-mail uses many of the elements a real
eBay message would use. What's different is that 1) these type of
messages are delivered from eBay on behalf of the buyer and do not come
directly from the buyer, 2) in a real e-mail the receiver's real eBay ID
is used-it doesn't just say "Hi", 3) the real eBay message contains the
item number which you can check, and 4) the URL listed in the status bar
(http://traderonline.whois-online.org) is not eBay.

Recommended Action: If you receive an e-mail like this, carefully check
all the items noted above to ensure the message is truly from eBay. If
you're not sure, then open a new browser window and login to your eBay
account to check on the status of your latest sale, purchase, or bid.

Security Alerts and Updates

NGS Research announced multiple vulnerabilities in multiple products
this week.

Multiple vulnerabilities were found in the Oracle Database Server,
including all versions of the Oracle Database 10g and Oracle9i Database
Server. Patches are available from Oracle. The vulnerabilities allow an
unprivileged user to gain 'DBA' privileges, and to do so over the web
through the Oracle Application Server. There is also a buffer overflow.
The details of both are being withheld for several months to allow users
time to test and install patches.

Multiple vulnerabilities in the Real Player software were also found.
Fixes are available from RealNetworks for all of them. Those using
RealPlayer 10.5 (6.0.12.1040) and older are vulnerable to an attacker
deleting arbitrary files on their systems using a specially crafted web
page. The installation of a Real Metadata Package, designed to contain
extensions to RealPlayer, can overwrite arbitrary files on systems with
the contents of the package. A flaw in the file name extension checking
(using a name like ">../../../../../windows/system32/notepad.exe?.mp3")
bypasses checks in the installer.

The same versions of RealPlayer are vulnerable to a partial overflow of
a pointer when an overly-long tag is used in a Real Metadata Package.
NGS does not see a scenario in which this is exploitable, but cannot
rule out the possibility. When URL encoded traversal sequences are used
for loading a skin file, the player can be tricked into loading an
arbitrary file. This vulnerability is also not apparently exploitable,
but it could be used to confirm the existence of a file and combined
with the file deletion vulnerability to delete files selectively.

The final vulnerability is in the RealPlayer ActiveX component. A
specially-crafted web page or skin file can cause the player to execute
arbitrary code.

A buffer overflow in the MSN Heartbeat Control, installed by MSN gaming
sites, could allow arbitrary code execution through a web page. This
flaw was fixed by Microsoft as part of last year'sthe MS04-038 patch.

Multiple vulnerabilities in the AtHoc toolbar allow remote code
execution through Internet Explorer. AtHoc sells a development kit for
building toolbars for Internet Explorer. Among its customers, whose
toolbars may be vulnerable, are eBay, Accenture, and WiredNews. The
errors affect standard features of the toolbar and thus are applicable
to all toolbars built with the kit. AtHoc has fixed the problems, but
users will have to get their fixes from the AtHoc customers, like eBay,
which use the AtHoc code in their toolbars.

The install engine part of the Active Setup feature in Internet
Explorer, is vulnerable to a heap-based integer overflow exploitable
from a web page. The bug could allow an attacker to run arbitrary code.
This too was fixed by Microsoft as part of last year's the MS04-038
patch.

Finally, a remotely-exploitable buffer overflow exists in the Windows
NetDDE service that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code
with no authentication. This flaw was fixed last year by Microsoft as
part of the MS04-031 patch.

Jargon Watch

The Windows NetDDE Service is a network communications facility used for
interprocess communication between network applications.

An Internet Explorer toolbar is a program that extends the functionality
of Internet Explorer with a custom bar for menus and icons. Because the
toolbar runs in the context of Internet Explorer, vulnerabilities in it
may be exploitable through web pages. Many malicious programs,
especially spyware, run as Internet Explorer toolbars.

-------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------


- Library Collections Find Home Online
- Google to Branch Into Television- Rich pickings for hi-tech thieves
- Software watching while you work
- E-Mail Excitement, Modern Racism
- WORLD BANK'S E-DEVELOPMENT SERVICES THEMATIC GROUP
- No Place to Hide: Freedom and Identity
- Security Watch: Blocking and Beating Gator
- Web Searchers Enjoy Misplaced Self-Confidence
- Techies Pitch In Tsunami Relief
- Army readies robot soldier for Iraq
- Turning the Tables on Spammers

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-------------------------------------

Web police to fight paedophiles

http://news.bbc.co.uk

By Neil Bennett
BBC Crime Correspondent

Police and major internet companies around the world have launched a
website on which children can report their suspicions about the
activities of possible paedophiles.

A computer user

Police may pilot a 24-hour online paedophile monitoring scheme

Microsoft and AOL will put a link on their websites to the Virtual
Global Task Force (VGTF), which is run by international law enforcement
agencies and where police officers will be able to gather evidence.

Vodafone and BT have joined the UK's

National Crime Squad (NCS) as partner agencies.

People accessing the internet via their mobile phones will also be able
to click on to the logo of the VGTF.

If youngsters or their parents are worried that paedophiles might be
trying to contact them, they will be able to click on the logo.

They will then be told how to get the IP address and user name of the
person they are concerned about - these and the contents of the online
dialogue can be used as evidence if police decide to prosecute.

But they can also use the information to warn offenders.


We are the sheriff of the world wide web

Jim Gamble

NCS deputy director general

Police hope to deter those they describe as the "curiously deviant" so
they can concentrate on the more serious internet paedophiles.

Senior officers have likened this web link to the front door of an
online police station.

Jim Gamble, deputy director general of NCS, said: "We want to send a
message to paedophiles that the internet is not a safe place for them to
operate.

"It used to be like the old wild west where anybody could do anything.
But then the sheriff came along to impose law and order. We are the
sheriff of the world wide web."

VGTF logo

Concerned parents will be able to click on the VGTF logo

The VGTF was launched in 2003 as a direct response to lessons learned
from investigations into online child abuse around the world.

It is an international alliance of law enforcement agencies comprising
the NCS in the UK, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Australia's
Hi-Tech Crime Centre, the US Department of Security and Interpol.

Other initiatives being worked on by the task force include plans to
have police officers online 24 hours a day to monitor paedophile
activity.

They could also respond immediately if contacted by people clicking on
to the VGTF logo.

They have also launched Operation PIN - a honeytrap website designed to
catch and warn people trying to download pornographic images from the
internet.

---------------------------------------

Also in this issue....

- Microsoft to users: Prove it!
- Briefs filed at Supreme Court in file-sharing case
- Web police to fight paedophiles
- US duo in first spam conviction
- Lineage virus looks for log-ins
- Microsoft backs down in EU tussle
- U.N.: No 'Natural' Disasters?
- Does Deep Earth Host Untapped Fuel?
- Canada Steps in on Blackberry Patent Row
- Technology Could Speed Border Crossings
- Report: Global Warming at Critical Point
- Opera, the Forgotten Browser
- Microsoft: Legit Windows or no updates
- Bill Gates hires open source icon Linus Torvalds?
- Google snaps up top Firefox programmer
- The United States' battle to secure cyberspace


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Experts: Cyber-crime bigger threat than cyber-terror

http://www.cnn.com

By Michael Coren
CNN
Monday, January 24, 2005 Posted: 1:35 PM EST (1835 GMT)

(CNN) -- As David Perry left a cyber-security conference in Luxembourg
in 2004, an airport terminal handling international flights was in
chaos.

A network worm known as Sasser was scorching the world's computer
systems and had knocked out the airport's reservation desk, stranding
delegates in the terminal.

In a fable for the information age, conference attendees, among them
some of the world's foremost computer security experts, flipped open
their laptops and reopened the terminal in a matter of minutes.

The paradox of the Internet -- a worldwide computer network designed by
visionaries and scientists succumbing to spam and other malicious code
written by teenagers -- riles computer security experts.

"We actually have people abandoning using their computers because it's
just too much trouble," said Perry, global director of education for
international computer security company Trend Micro.

"If that's the case, if it's too much trouble to use the system, then
certain changes need to be made."

Following the September 11 attacks, fears that terrorists would open a
new front in cyberspace spurred Congress to appropriate billions of
dollars to improve the security of the nation's electronic
infrastructure. The government accelerated a process already under way
to defend the most critical systems from attack -- sometimes physically
disengaging them from the outside world, computer experts say.

In contrast, commercial and private computer networks are increasingly
vulnerable.

Fundamental reforms are under way to secure the Internet, not
necessarily from terrorist attack but from disruptive programs and
e-mails that are crippling the system. A new generation of hardware,
built directly into the Internet's backbone itself, can stop viruses and
malicious software in its tracks.

"The terror we're facing is the terror of spam, the terror of spyware,
the terror of network worms, but nothing associated with a
nation-state," Perry said.

"Although I am sure terrorists and secret agents use computers and
computer hacking tools for purposes of espionage and sabotage, I don't
think cyber-terrorism is quite the threat that we imagine it's going to
be."

Although the threat of cyber-terrorism exists, the greatest risk to
Internet communication, commerce and security is from cyber-crime
motivated by profit, Perry said.

The Software Engineering Institute, a federally funded research center
at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, reports that
electronic assaults are growing more sophisticated -- and lucrative.

Attacks have evolved from cracking passwords into vast coordinated
attacks from thousands of hijacked computers for blackmail and theft.

"Attacks against Internet-connected systems have become so commonplace
that reports of the number of incidents provide little information
[about] the scope and impact of attacks," reported the institute's CERT
Coordination Center last year.

The center stopped tracking such incidents in 2004 after the number rose
from 3,734 in 1998 to 137,529 in 2003. CERT stands for Computer
Emergency Readiness Team.

Yet those figures account for only the attacks that are reported.

"Many companies still seem unwilling to report e-crime for fear of
damaging their reputation," Larry Johnson, special agent with the
Criminal Investigative Division of the U.S. Secret Service, was quoted
as saying in the report.

"The technology and resources are there to effectively fight this. We
just need to work smarter to do this," Johnson said.

Seventy percent of organizations surveyed by CSO magazine, a publication
for security executives, reported at least one crime or attack during
2003.

Respondents estimated the damage at about $666 million, the magazine
said. Forty-three percent of the organizations reported they had more
intrusions in 2003 than during the previous year.
'Like testing doorknobs'

"There are so many machines connected to the Internet, you will see ...
attempts to sweep a whole range of Internet addresses looking for hosts
that have weaknesses," said John Curran, chief technology officer of
ServerVault, a firm offering secure computer services. "It's like
testing doorknobs."

Most programs are not inherently destructive. They are just poorly
written code designed to spread without erasing data or crashing
computers. But their voracious infection rate overwhelms computer
networks.

Today's computer plagues spread virtually instantaneously.

In 2003, the fastest computer worm in history -- the Sapphire Worm, or
Slammer -- broke out.

Within 10 minutes of the first infection, Slammer had reached 90 percent
of the world's vulnerable hosts, doubling in size every 8.5 seconds,
according to computer scientists at CAIDA, the Cooperative Association
for Internet Data Analysis, and other research groups.

It caused network failures, canceled airline flights, interrupted
elections, and crashed ATMs. And it could have been much worse.

"It is important to realize that if the worm had carried a malicious
payload, had attacked a more widespread vulnerability, or had targeted a
more popular service, the effects would likely have been far more
severe," the researchers reported.

"There is no conceivable way for system administrators to respond to
threats of this speed."

So, security experts are designing automated defenses.

The anti-virus software, routinely updated by companies' programmers, is
being replaced by dedicated hardware that regularly scans networks for
hostile programs and unusual traffic patterns signaling an attack.

Internet service providers, the main conduits for Internet traffic, are
cooperating with customers to detect and prevent the spread of network
worms.

"The threats out there are all manageable," Curran said. "We don't have
a silver bullet against any of them, but there is nothing that can't be
overcome with good practices."

----------------------------------

Also in this issue:

- Study: Most Identity Theft Occurs Offline
- Scientists Work on Software to Scan Arabic
- Net regulation 'still possible'
- Tumour diary: The time has come
- Experts: Cyber-crime bigger threat than cyber-terror
- Truckers recruited in war on terror
- Scientists Find Ancient Remains in Mexico
- America Online to Stop Providing Direct Access to Usenet Newsgroups
- Does Deep Earth Host Untapped Fuel?
- No Place to Hide: Freedom and Identity
- Is Erratic Weather a Revival of the Past?
- Only genuine Windows will get patches
- Google unveils video search
- World Wide Web Consortium rolls out new XML standards
- Net-based phones lure more users
- Driver's Licenses As National ID?
- Climate Catastrophe Warning

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The Internet imagined: 'We are immigrants to the future'

http://www.cnn.com

By Christine Boese
CNN Headline News
Wednesday, January 26, 2005 Posted: 5:12 PM EST (2212 GMT)

(CNN) -- Is the Internet vulnerable to a terrorist attack?

Sixty-six percent of the 1,286 technology experts surveyed in a recent
study said they believe at least one devastating attack will be launched
against the Internet infrastructure or the U.S. power grid within the
next 10 years.

More than half of these same experts also predicted that the Internet
will be deeply integrated into our lives through both objects and
physical environments, often with higher-speed connections (and more
surveillance).

In November, I wrote about participating as an expert in a Pew Internet
& American Life and Elon University study, "The Future of the Internet."

In it, a diverse group of technology experts and ordinary Net surfers
offered their visions of what could happen with online technologies and
society in the next 10 years.

The experts study is now complete, and investigators have published the
results.

Because participants were solicited online and not randomly selected,
the statistics are not considered applicable to larger social groups,
but the response rate (and the prominence of the Internet experts who
participated) give the study credibility.

Half of the experts were online before the advent of the graphical World
Wide Web in 1993.

The experts predicted the most radical changes caused by the Internet
will hit news organizations and publishing, citing blogs as a catalyst.

By contrast, most of them said religious institutions will experience
the least radical changes because of the Internet.

Education is another area of significant agreement among the experts.
Fifty-seven percent predict virtual classes will become more widespread,
with students grouped by interest and skill in the future, rather than
by age.

But in their comments many expressed frustration at how resistant
educational institutions were to technological innovation in the past 10
years.

Fifty-six percent said telecommuting and home-schooling will expand,
blurring boundaries between work and leisure, affecting family dynamics.

Fifty percent of the experts say they believe anonymous and free
Internet file-sharing on peer-to-peer networks will be as common 10
years from now as it is today.

The experts didn't agree on everything. Half the respondents disagreed
that people would use the Internet to support political biases and stop
reading anything that disagreed with their views.

Also, half disagreed with a prediction that online voting would be
secure and widespread by 2014.

As much as I enjoyed completing the survey, I also loved digging deeply
into the extensive typed responses posted to the Web site, comparing my
own responses to those of some of my "Internet heroes" and writers whose
work I read avidly.

Some said what I expected: Howard Rheingold predicted flash mobs or
"Smart Mobs" (the title of his book) will mobilize political action with
cell phones and digital assistants, sooner in some countries than
others.

David Weinberger said "hyperlinks will subvert hierarchy," a common
theme on his blog and in his book, "Small Pieces Loosely Joined."

"We the Media" author Dan Gillmor said traditional kinds of
"intermediaries" will be undermined, and new intermediaries will emerge.

But those who follow Gillmor's career know he believes this so strongly
about journalism that he left his job at the San Jose Mercury News to
commit himself to a grassroots project to envision new journalistic
intermediaries.

Perhaps some of the anonymous predictions were bolder:

Soon being offline will not be an option. ... There will be huge demand
for: security, wireless access and entertainment. Advertisers will
continue to flee print and broadcast media, fracturing that market and
forcing them into niches. When everything is available to everyone at
the same time there will be no dominant killer-advertising channel.

Ethernet originator and 3Com founder Bob Metcalfe could still imagine
wildly futuristic visions, predicting that people would stop moving to
cities, the Internet would replace schools, and video blogs would
replace television channels.

This experts survey was conducted from September to November 2004. Four
thousand predictions made from 1990 to 1995 are already compiled in a
database accessible at the same Web site.

The expert survey responses are being added to that database. The
ongoing research project forms an amazing time capsule to look back on
as Internet cybercultures evolve into the future.

As one anonymous respondent put it, "We are immigrants to the future.
It's all in our children's hands now."

-------------------------

Also in this issue:

- Bush backs computerized medical records
- The Internet imagined: 'We are immigrants to the future'
- Warning over Windows Word files
- Tesco 'spychips' anger consumers
- Jeers, Cheers Greet Google's Video Search
- EarthLink Wins Agreement To End Alabama Spam
- Techies Pitch In Tsunami Relief
- Review: Mac Mini Elegant, Inexpensive
- Leading health "blog" closes with sad end
- It's Not All in Your Head


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No Need To Stick With Internet Explorer

http://News.google.com

January 31, 2005

By Herb Weisbaum

SEATTLE - When it comes to web browsers, Microsoft's Internet Explorer
is the unquestioned king, but it's not your only choice.

A number of competitors offer browsers that are easier to use and work
just as well, with less risk of a hacker attack.

For its February issue, PCWorld magazine tested Internet Explorer and
its strongest competitors. The editors gave top honors to the Mozilla
Foundation's Firefox for its "fast, simple and secure approach to the
web."

PCWorld's Dennis O'Reilly says Firefox is the first new browser built
from the ground up. "They really took a different approach," he says.
"They wanted to keep it streamlined, nice and simple, just the
components you need to browse the web."

Firefox offers a neat feature you won't find on Internet Explorer-
tabbed web browsing. If you have more than one open, each page can get a
separate tab at the top of the Firefox browser. No need to go between
web pages by clicking on the launch task bar. I've tried it and it's
really nice.

The bottom line: While Internet Explorer rated 3 out of 5 stars, PC
World gave Firefox 4 and a half stars.

PC World says Firefox is less likely to be attacked by hackers than
Internet Explorer. When there is a problem, O'Reilly says, you're more
likely to get a patch very quickly. That's because Firefox is an
open-source program.

"With IE you have to rely on Microsoft to provide the fix and they do so
at their own sweet time," O'Reilly says. "With Firefox, since it's sort
of a public project, everybody's always working on it, trying to find
the holes and patch them just about the same time, so you could get
updates in a matter of days."

fIREFOX VERS. 1.0: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

--------------------------------

Also in this isuue ....

- Activists Urge Free Open-Source Software
- Man Sentenced for Releasing Computer Worm
- Digital evidence: Today's fingerprints
- Bill Gates plots a Windows future
- Developer: Firefox 1.1 to be Delayed
- Global temperatures could be set to soar
- Spam more sophisticated and dangerous, report says
- Blogger Takes On U.S. Military
- Syria Restriction Narrows Broadband Internet
- Modest Mini Can Put Macs in Hands of the Masses
- Review: Mac Mini Elegant, Inexpensive
- Teaching Computers to Read No Simple Task
- What high-definition will do to DVDs
- Many don't know how to use search engines
- No Need To Stick With Internet Explorer


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Activists Urge Free Open-Source Software

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=457338

Brazil, on Saturday, Jan. 29, 2005. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
By ALAN CLENDENNING Associated Press Writer
The Associated PressThe Associated Press

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil Jan 31, 2005 - Activists at a leftist gathering
where Microsoft is viewed as a corporate bogeyman urged developing
nations Saturday to leap into the information age with free open-source
software.

John Barlow, a lyricist for the Grateful Dead, told a gathering inside a
packed warehouse that poor nations can't solve their problems unless
they stop paying expensive software licensing fees.

Open source software includes programs that are not controlled by a
single company. The software can be developed by anyone, with few
restrictions. The best known such software is the Linux operating
system, which can be downloaded free from the Internet.

"Already, Brazil spends more in licensing fees on proprietary software
than it spends on hunger," said Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, a cyberspace civil liberties group.
Top Stories

The session was one of several at the World Social Forum, which has
drawn tens of thousands of people to an annual protest against the World
Economic Forum, a gathering of world leaders now underway in Davos,
Switzerland.

The activists in Brazil are generally united in their oppositon to what
many call unbridled capitalism and the policies of the Bush
administration. They are also promoting hundreds of causes, ranging from
opposition to genetically modified crops to free distribution of land to
poor farmers.

Barlow said Brazil is trying to wean itself from Microsoft with a
campaign to persuade Brazilians to shift from costly Windows products to
applications that run on the Linux operating system.

Microsoft contends open-source software can be more expensive than
Windows programs when service costs are factored in.

How much people spend on Microsoft products is unclear because the
company often provides discounts when it senses it may lose business.
However, competition from open-source software has prompted Microsoft to
offer those discounts.

Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's administration says the
open-source policy makes sense for a developing country where a mere 10
percent of the 182 million people have computers at home, and where the
debt-laden government is the nation's biggest computer buyer.

China, France, Germany, Japan and South Korea also are pursuing
open-source alternatives. In a partial response to the open-source
threat and to piracy, Microsoft last year launched stripped-down, cheap
versions of Windows in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Similar
products are on the way for India and Russia.

Joining Barlow on Saturday were Brazilian pop superstar Gilberto Gil,
who is Brazil's minister of culture, and Lawrence Lessig, Stanford
University law professor and chairman of Creative Commons, a nonprofit
organization devoted to sharing creative material online.

All the social forum's 800 computers are running on open-source
software, but the loosely organized event ran into an embarrassing
glitch Saturday when two big screens betrayed the fact that the computer
was running on Windows, with the operating system's toolbar visible at
the bottom of the screens.

Lessig noticed and the computer was quickly disconnected and replaced
with a laptop running on open-source software.

-----------------------

Also in this issue....

- East & Southeast Asia: An Annotated Directory of Internet Resources
- HP: We have the next transistor
- Take a virtual walk with Amazon's A9
- Microsoft launches its own search
- Clever cars taking to the road
- Sun Microsystems Unveils Grid Computing
- Activists Urge Free Open-Source Software
- Researchers Claim to Crack Car Key Code
- Mozilla Updates Firefox 2 Plans
- Brazil Reshapes Debate on Intellectual Property
- Blogger Takes On U.S. Military
- Prison Time For Teen Virus Guru
- Identity Theft, Net Scams Rose in '04-FTC
- Lawyers form group to aid open source code writers
- EU opens door to Gates, but not on Windows
- Dark fiber: Businesses see the light
- Congress proposes tax on all Net, data connections
- Law barring spam allows a flood instead
- Employees to be billed for personal Internet use?


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Cybersex: Seek and Ye Shall Find

By Regina Lynn
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66423,00.html
02:00 AM Jan. 28, 2005 PT

Boy, did I touch a nerve when I asked where cybersex had gone. Since
then I've been showered with long, thoughtful e-mails about the decline
of good cybersex. And an almost equal number of people wrote to ask, "If
you find it, let me know where it is."

Many blame the deterioration of sex chat on the influx of AOL members
exploring IRC for the first time, thanks to the newfangled web-based
user interfaces. It was "pretty much the universal death knell of some
of the big hangouts, as if a half-thousand Paris Hiltons suddenly showed
up to the best party ever," wrote Garrett, a Sex Drive reader.

Still, he says, "nerds being nerds, there's always a solid group that
knows enough about the technology to stay just outside the mainstream."
That's where the good cyber is thriving, beyond the reach of the
newbies, the opportunists, the clueless and the bots.

I should have known that the best cyber occurs in games: MUDs, MUCKs and
MMORPGs, oh my.

Role-playing games attract people with strong imaginations and the
ability to evolve a fantasy over a long period of time. And even online,
there's nothing solitary about an RPG. To make the fantasy complete, you
must interact with others in a shared adventure of the mind.

If you can do all that, you can probably cyber with the best.

But even if you join a game for the sole purpose of cybersex -- which I
don't recommend -- you will not be able to sustain yourself in the game
world long enough to find the good stuff. Because good cyber, like good
sex, arises out of a relationship.

That relationship might develop over hours or weeks (which is a long
time in cyberspace), but it still must develop before the cybersex will
be any good. You need to get a sense for each other's timing, the style
of banter that gets the most response, and in a game world, the kinds of
fantasy that turn each of you on.

Games like Tapestries and Sociolotron have sexuality as a main theme,
but even these games expect you to forge relationships, explore the game
world, set up businesses or farms or armies. In more mainstream
environments -- EverQuest, DragonRealms, Second Life -- cybersex can be
the logical culmination of ongoing flirtations with other players, but
you don't go around asking for it unless you want to be ostracized and
alone.

The best relationships, online or off, sexual or not, arise naturally
out of common interests and spending time together. Not long ago, just
being online and in IRC was enough of a common interest to forge bonds
between chatters.

Now that everyone is online, it takes something more. Sex is an almost
universal interest, so entering an adult chat room doesn't mean you'll
find anyone who shares your particular tastes. But creating a character
and having adventures in a Tolkeinesque environment sustained by the
collective imagination of hundreds of players -- that's a complexity
that weeds out all but the most dedicated.

For non-gamers, blogs may be the modern gathering place for like-minded
individuals to find one another. Devlon, a Sex Drive reader, wrote to
tell me that he has found cyber through his blog. "You can browse
through a person's blog, get a taste (for who they are). There can be
flirting through comments to entries, and then private messages that can
get very hot," he says.

Are blogs the new chat? Maybe. Blogs and their comments definitely
appeal to longtime netizens who miss the glory days of the BBS, and it
is unlikely that participants come to a blog on a mission to find
cybersex. As in games, cybersex emerges as relationships form.

The heart of good cybersex is story. Cybersex is more about co-creating
an erotic experience than it is about masturbation. (Or pornography, for
that matter. Pay to play is not cybersex, no matter what you -- or she
-- are doing.) For those who lack the time or the interest to live in
RPGs, the chat rooms and message boards at erotica websites can be a
mecca for cyber. Several readers wrote to recommend Pixie's Place,
EroticStories.com and Literotica, not just for the literature but for
the community.

Each generation fears the succeeding generation's media, which I think
explains some of the panic about how much time people spend looking for
or practicing cybersex. People worried when television began to replace
radio. They moaned when radio began to replace reading aloud to each
other. They probably rued the day reading replaced oral storytelling.

Now that the internet is replacing television, we are rediscovering our
love of creating stories, not just watching them. Those who love to read
and write find each other in text; those who prefer aural/verbal
communication use headsets and microphones; and those who prefer video
can connect through webcam.

And it doesn't surprise me that the most common story we tell is sex.
I'm just glad it's still out there, and that you have to work a little
to find it.

----------------------------

Also in this issue:

- Web site traces African-American migration
- Germany proposes hefty fines for spammers
- More women turn to net security
- Questionable Picture Posted
- Microsoft Unveils EuroScience Initiative
- Scientist: Global Warming Hurts Africa
- Tech Support Tips Police to Alleged Child Sex Abuse
- WWF: Global Warming May Kill Polar Bears
- Apple, Google and Al-Jazeera are Top Brands for People
- Broad new act fails to can spam
- Windows authentication: reasonable and gentle
- A piece of Net history on the auction block
- Microsoft to confide security woes to governments
- Rowling warns Harry Potter fans about Net scams
- Sun releases Solaris 10 for free
- How to Handle a Burning PC
- Cybersex: Seek and Ye Shall Find
- Computer System Credited With Saving Would-Be Drowning Victim
- Database Fights Diploma Mills
- Searching: Yellow Pages With Eyes on the Prize


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The Internet, ranked No. 1, changed the world

Tuesday, January 18, 2005 Posted: 4:08 PM EST (2108 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/01/03/cnn25.top25.innovations/index.html

(CNN) -- The world was different before the Internet.

Without the Internet, you would not be reading this. There would be no
way to instantly find the name of the movie your favorite actor was in
five years ago or how much it costs to fly to Aruba. Shopping required
braving the elements and the crowds. Paying bills relied on the postal
service.

Today, with a couple of clicks, you can go anywhere in the world without
leaving your computer.

So it should come as little surprise that the Internet (as we know it)
headlined the top 25 innovations of the past quarter century, according
to a panel of technology leaders assembled by the Lemelson-MIT Program,
which promotes inventiveness in teens.

In creating the list, the group hoped to single out "25 non-medically
related technological innovations that have become widely used since
1980, are readily recognizable by most Americans, have had a direct and
perceptible impact on our everyday lives, and/or could dramatically
affect our lives in the future."

The creator of the Web as we know it is British software consultant Tim
Berners-Lee. Frustrated by the multitude of information systems
requiring complicated access, Berners-Lee fashioned a universal one that
made information readily available.

He created HTML (hypertext markup language) and its rules of usage
(HTTP, hypertext transfer protocol) and in 1991 unveiled the World Wide
Web, making no money from any of them.

Like the Internet, other items on the top 25 list have changed the way
people go about their lives and are so commonplace that they are almost
taken for granted.

For example, many people turn off their PCs (No. 3) and their HDTV (No.
19) or plasma screen TVs (No. 18) and grab their cell phones (No. 2) and
laptop computers (No. 7) as they leave their homes.

Once in their cars, they will probably give the airbags (No. 13) that
can save their lives in an accident barely an afterthought as they
listen to music on CDs (No. 8).

Some will use the commercialized GPS (Global Positioning System, No. 6)
to plan their route, and if it is a pleasure trip, they will probably
bring along their digital cameras (No. 9).

Upon arriving at their destination, others will check their e-mail (No.
5) via short-range high frequency radio (WI-FI, No. 25) and their
voicemail (No. 23), before heading off to an ATM (No. 14) for cash.

The technology that makes these items possible is taken even more for
granted by the average consumer.

It is safe to say that the first words of someone who walks away from a
car accident unharmed are not, "Thank goodness for the advent of
nanotechnology (No. 21) and MEMS (microelectromechanical system, No.
11)."

Yet without the tiny silicon chip that sensed the impending collision,
the airbag would not have deployed in time.

"The device that causes an airbag to inflate in a crash is a nanotech
device," said David Kirkpatrick, senior editor at Fortune Magazine.

"It's a highly sensitive little device, an accelerometer that can detect
when a car's movement has suddenly stopped. And that's a very key safety
device that affects all of our lives."

Emergency phone calls are made possible by compact power sources such as
nickel-metal hydride and lithium-ion batteries (No. 15). Without them,
cell phones would be far less dependable and certainly not rechargeable.

Flash memory (No. 22) made the digital camera possible and changed the
way people take photographs and OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes,
No. 17) are likely to improve the displays on cameras and are starting
to appear on some models.

"Flash memory is a tiny version of the disk drive that's in your
computer," said Gene Fitzgerald, MIT professor of material science and
engineering. "On your disk drive you might store pictures and other
information, and the flash memory is a tiny device that can store all
that information.

"You can have it in your cell phone, you can have it in your PDA, just
like your disk drive in the computer."

Law enforcement has used science to its advantage with DNA
fingerprinting, the process that produces a printed pattern of a
person's DNA (No. 12), and everything from airport security to
supermarket checkout lines use radio frequency ID tags (No. 10) to track
materials.

Fiber optics help link the world together, making inexpensive phone
calls and the plethora of cable channels possible.

Some of the inventions on the list have brought to life concepts
formerly reserved for science-fiction writers. Among them are the space
shuttle (No. 20), which advanced space exploration, and hybrid cars (No.
16) which pollute less by using less gasoline. Interestingly, the
innovation that laid the groundwork for many of the inventions mentioned
above can be found underground, where fiber optics (No. 4) has helped
turn the world into a global village.

"Fiber optics have linked the world together and made our world, our
planet, basically one small place," Kirkpatrick said. "If it weren't for
fiber optics, we wouldn't be able to have inexpensive global phone calls
or 200 cable channels on our televisions."

Rounding out the list are modern hearing aids (No. 24), which have
improved the quality of life for the hearing impaired by offering
sleeker, better-designed models.

Stay tuned to CNN.com as CNN continues to celebrate its 25th anniversary
by unveiling other top 25 lists through 2005.

--------------------------------

Also in this issue:

- Google blows away estimates
- Web site traces African-American migration
- The Internet, ranked No. 1, changed the world
- Warning over tsunami aid website
- Festival show for Baghdad Blogger
- India widens access to telecoms
- Al-Jazeera Laughable
- Schools Making Grades Available Online
- Deleting Spam Costs Billions, Study Finds
- Yahoo launches 'contextual' search
- Worm Targets MSN Messenger



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Warnings about junk mail deluge

The amount of spam circulating online could about be about to undergo a
massive increase, say experts.

Anti-spam group Spamhaus is warning about a novel virus which hides the
origins of junk mail.

The program makes spam look like it is being sent by legitimate mail
servers making it hard to spot and filter out.

Spamhaus said that if the problem went unchecked real e-mail messages
could get drowned by the sheer amount of junk being sent.

Mail meltdown

Before now many spammers have recruited home PCs to act as anonymous
e-mail relays in an attempt to hide the origins of their junk mail.

The PCs are recruited using viruses and worms that compromise machines
via known vulnerabilities or by tricking people into opening an
attachment infected with the malicious program.

Once compromised the machines start to pump out junk mail on behalf of
spammers.

Spamhaus helps to block junk messages from these machines by collecting
and circulating blacklists of net addresses known to harbour infected
machines.

But the novel worm spotted recently by Spamhaus routes junk via the mail
servers of the net service firm that infected machines used to get
online in the first place.

In this way the junk mail gets a net address that looks legitimate.

As blocking all mail from net firms just to catch the spam is
impractical, Spamhaus is worried that the technique will give junk
mailers the ability to spam with little fear of being spotted and
stopped.

Steve Linford, director of Spamhaus, predicted that if a lot of spammers
exploit this technique it could trigger the failure of the net's e-mail
sending infrastructure.

David Stanley, UK managing director of filtering firm Ciphertrust, said
the new technique was the next logical step for spammers.

"They are adding to their armoury," he said.

The amount of spam in circulation was still growing, said Mr Stanley,
but he did not think that the appearance of this trick would mean e-mail
meltdown.

But Kevin Hogan, senior manager at Symantec security response, said such
warnings were premature.

"If something like this mean the end of e-mail then e-mail would have
stopped two-three years ago," said Mr Hogan.

While the technique of routing mail via mail servers of net service
firms might cause problems for those that use blacklists and block lists
it did not mean that other techniques for stopping spam lost their
efficacy too.

Mr Hogan said 90% of the junk mail filtered by Symantec subsidiary
Brightmail was spotted using techniques that did not rely on looking at
net addresses.

For instance, said Mr Hogan, filtering out e-mail messages that contain
a web link can stop about 75% of spam.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/4236709.stm

-----------------------------------------

Also in this issue:

- Report: FBI wasted millions on 'Virtual Case File'
- Warnings about junk mail deluge
- Viewers start to tune in online
- The taxman comes knocking online
- How Workplace Tech Can Make You Sick
- Rebel Web Sites Useful, Prone to Hoaxes
- 'Medium Risk' alert sounded against new variant of Bropia worm
- Industry struggles toward interoperable Web services


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Report: Al Qaeda-linked Web site based in Canada

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/02/06/canada.al.qaeda.ap/index.ht
ml

KELOWNA, British Columbia (AP) -- A Web site with links to al Qaeda is
operating through a server in western Canada, the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology's Technology Review magazine's February edition
reports.

The Web site based in Kelowna, British Columbia -- about 170 miles east
of Vancouver -- is called Supporters of Shareeah. It is the only
Canadian Web site identified as terrorist-based in the MIT report.

Shareeah is a concept of Islamic rule.

The Web site is linked to radical Islamic fundamentalists with one of
its directors -- Abu Hamza al-Masri -- now in jail in England for, in
part, his alleged complicity in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000.

Rackforce, the company operating the server, told a local newspaper on
the weekend it did not know where the people creating the content of the
Web site posted through the server live, but said it was not Kelowna.

Spokesman Randall Robinson said he was unaware of the nature of the site
and was investigating.

"We take this extremely seriously," said Robinson. "We do not allow any
hate-based sites. If this one needs to be reviewed by law enforcement
agencies; we will take that step."

Robinson could not be reached for comment on Sunday. Local police said
the Web site had not been reported to them.

Rackforce's network hosts some 80,000 Web sites, which are often
changing and difficult to police.

The site singles out five people described as instrumental in advancing
its causes, including Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, who was killed several
years ago in what the site calls a U.S.-supported assassination.

Azzam is described in several Internet articles as, roughly paraphrased,
the man who taught Osama bin Laden all he knows.

The International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism labels him "bin
Laden's spiritual mentor."

Some of the research in the MIT article was provided by the SITE
Institute -- Search for International Terrorist Entities an organization
based in Washington, D.C. -- which tracks terrorist activities on the
Internet. No one at SITE uses a last name, for fear of retribution from
terrorist groups.

"Supporters of Shareeah (SOS) is a fairly radical Web site," said Mike.

"The site has been bounced around for a while, but it found a home in
Kelowna about six months ago. Rackforce is providing space, but they
aren't creating the content," he said.

---------------------------

Also in this issue:

- Pentagon sites: Journalism or propaganda?
   WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Department of Defense plans to add more
sites on the Internet   to provide information to a global audience --
but critics question whether the Pentagon   is violating President
Bush's pledge not to pay journalists to promote his policies.
- FBI shuts down public e-mail system
   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI said Friday it has shut down an e-mail
system that it uses to   communicate with the public because of a
possible security breach.
- .FTC: At least $548 million lost to identity theft
   WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Americans lost at least $548 million to
identity theft and   consumer fraud last year as the Internet provided
new victims for age-old scams, according   to government statistics
released Tuesday.
- Recording Industry Association sues dead woman
   Lawyers representing Recording Industry Association of America have
filed suit against an   83-year old woman who died in December, claiming
that she illegally traded music over the   Internet.
- Details a problem, but seniors see 'big picture' better than young
folk: study
   TORONTO (CP) - Older people appear to be better and faster at grasping
"the big picture"   than their younger counterparts, giving a poke in
the eye to notions that seniors are   slower and less adept at tasks, a
study suggests.
- Digital guru floats sub-$100 PC.
   Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and founder of MIT's Media Labs, says he
is developing a   laptop PC that will go on sale for less than $100
(£53).
- Report: Al Qaeda-linked Web site based in Canada
   KELOWNA, British Columbia (AP) -- A Web site with links to al Qaeda is
operating through a   server in western Canada, the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology's Technology Review   magazine's February
edition reports.
- Opening doors for women in computing
   The computer science world was anything but welcoming to Maribel
Gonzalez.
- Mac Mini Or Windows? Why Not Both?
   You're getting a comprehensive software package, in other words, at
the same $499 you'd   pay for one of Apple's 40 GB iPod photo digital
music players. Previously, the least   expensive desktop Mac was $1,299;
the least expensive notebook is $999. I expect the Mac   mini will
reshape the long-running, quasi-religious Mac vs. Windows debate
-Alliance touts holographic disc 'revolution'
   Forget HD DVD, forget Blu-ray Disc, the future is the HVD - the
Holographic Versatile   Disc.
- 'Sexy' MSN worm detected
   Chennai: A new computer worm that spreads through the MSN Messenger,
an instant messaging   platform, is likely to tempt Internet chat users
with 'sexy' images, an anti-virus   software firm warned today.
- Turning the Tables on Spammers
   CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts -- Antispam activists last week vowed to get
tough with purveyors   of penis pills and get-rich-quick schemes, who
continue to dodge sophisticated e-mail   filters and break laws meant to
curtail their activities.
- Safe E-Mailing for Dummies
   Citibank is worried about you.
- Ireland Blocks Calls to Stop Scam
   Ireland has become the first country on earth to cut off direct-dialed
calls to entire   nations in a bid to crack down on internet-based
fraud.
- Changing the Face of Web Surfing
   CARDIFF, Wales -- "If you want a job done properly, do it yourself,"
the saying goes. Web   users frustrated by poorly designed sites are
increasingly applying that logic to the Net.

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----------------------------------------

E-mail is the new database

By Joia Shillingford
BBC News business reporter

"If a friend is excited about a concert and that gives me an idea for a
birthday gift, I will store the info on e-mail," says Georges Harik, the
man in charge of search-engine Google's Gmail service.

Stuart Anderson, Microsoft's Hotmail business manager in the UK, keeps
online shopping receipts in his mailbox in case he has to query anything
later.

"People are keeping a lot more information in their e-mail accounts for
retrieval at a later date," says Yahoo!

Web-based e-mail services like Hotmail, Yahoo!, Gmail and AOL Mail on
the Web are becoming databases by default as a growing number of people
use them, to store data and photos so they can retrieve them from
anywhere.

Growing trend

The trend has become more pronounced as the services have dramatically
increased their storage capacity in response to upstart Gmail offering a
free service with 1,000 megabytes (Mb) of storage.

"E-mail is a way of interacting not just with others, but also with
yourself, " says Mr Harik, who is director of Googlettes (new Google
services). "You want to remember something, so you send it to your
mailbox."

For all but the very organised, old e-mails will contain phone numbers
that haven't been entered into a diary, names and addresses of contacts,
meeting or customer information, useful statistics or competitor
information and photos of products and people.

The market for web-based e-mail services is still growing. "In the US,
it grew 3% between April and November 2004," said Andreas Gutjahr,
marketing manager, UK & Germany, for Neilsen//NetRatings, a
Nasdaq-listed internet research company.

He says the number of minutes users spend connected is also rising.

Money maker

But even where there is a small subscription fee, e-mail does not make
much money in itself. The prize is in the number of users - and
therefore advertisers - the providers can lure, not just to their online
mailboxes but also to portals like MSN and search engines like Google
and Yahoo!.

Gmail "will be very profitable for us," says Mr Harik.

But if web e-mail is being used for more than just sending and receiving
messages, how will this affect the market shares of the different
providers?

One possibility is that Hotmail's market dominance could be affected by
rival services better equipped to search through thousands of e-mails.

Rival offerings

Both Yahoo! and Google have had internet search engines as part of their
core business from the start. So they are well placed to offer efficient
e-mail searching.

Gmail was designed with the idea of searching for unstructured, unfiled
information in mind. Mr Harik says: "We've taken away about 70%-80% of
the reason to file things."

However, he believes: "It might still be worth filing e-mails related to
a specific project, where comprehensiveness (finding every single
message on a topic) was important."

"We have a labelling system that enables you to label messages in more
than one way. Also our conversation feature enables you to see all the
messages in an e-mail conversation."

Google will also search users' e-mails for keywords so that it can place
adverts in mailboxes relevant to users' interests. On the one hand, this
may make adverts more useful. On the other - though users' identities
won't be revealed to advertisers - it does raise privacy concerns.

Gmail is currently available by invitation only as it is still under
development. But it recently increased the number of new users that
existing customers can invite - from 10 to 50 - suggesting it is pushing
Gmail out to more people.

Yahoo! Mail says it has developed its e-mail searching too. "This can be
done through the new prominent 'Search Mail' and 'Search the Web'
buttons within the e-mail box," said a spokeswoman. "Enhanced searching
tools have become increasingly important as storage limits have
increased."

Limited options

By contrast, the search facilities on Hotmail are quite limited only
allowing searches in the To, From and Subject fields of an e-mail and
not in the text of a message.

Moreover, since Hotmail increased the amount of free storage it offers,
the search facility sometimes won't work at all for users with a lot of
e-mails.

For now, Microsoft - which has a separate search engine it upgraded this
month - is focusing on integrating Hotmail with other Microsoft
applications like instant messaging and blogging. It is not planning to
upgrade its Hotmail search facilities, according to Mr Anderson.

Challenge looms

Competition may be taking its toll on Hotmail. "If we look at Europe,
they [Hotmail] actually went down from a monthly audience of 25 million
users in April 2004 to 22 million in November," said Neilsen/NetRatings.

During the same period "Yahoo! increased by 2% from 9.6 million users a
month to nearly 9.8 million," he added.

The number of minutes spent accessing Hotmail in Europe also fell - from
47 minutes a month in April to 38 minutes last November.

Meanwhile usage of Yahoo! Mail increased by just over 12 minutes a month
to 52 mins.

But Mr Anderson says Hotmail is not planning to give up its dominant
share of the web e-mail market any time soon. It has recently been
encouraging users to sign up for more than one mailbox and has
introduced a series of Hotmail.co.uk mailboxes so people who missed out
on getting the user name they wanted have another chance.

"We've put a huge effort into upgrading our 187m users," says Mr
Anderson. "If we find people are using Hotmail as a dumping ground [for
information] and not being remotely organised, we will develop the
product.

"We are determined to stay ahead."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/4167633.stm

--------------------------

Also in this issue:

- Google's St. Valentine's Day massacre?
   176 million new shares will be eligible for sale on Feb. 14. Will the
lofty price hold?
- E-mail is the new database
   "If a friend is excited about a concert and that gives me an idea for
a birthday gift, I    will store the info on e-mail," says Georges
Harik, the man in charge of search-engine    Google's Gmail service.
- Gates launch hit by name blunder
   Microsoft may have to re-name a science initiative it launched only
last week after a   major science body with the same title cried foul.
- Ebbers 'aware' of WorldCom fraud
   Former WorldCom boss Bernie Ebbers was directly involved in the $11bn
financial fraud at   the firm, his closest associate has told a US
court.
- Why I'm giving up broadband
   With an estimated five million people now connected to broadband at
home, one early   internet enthusiast is giving it up for good. David
McCandless explains why he's given it   the boot.
- India seeks curbs on mobile spam
   India's Supreme Court has urged the government to crack down on
unsolicited calls and   'spam' text messages sent to mobile phone users.
- School Bullies Take Teasing Online
   The problem began when Alyssa was in sixth grade. She used an instant
messaging program to   talk online with all of her friends. But then one
day, the messages she received were most   unwelcome.
- Web Site: Iraq Qaeda Group Claims Suicide Bomb
   The al Qaeda wing in Iraq claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb
attack near an Iraqi   army recruitment center in Baghdad which killed
at least 21 people on Tuesday, according   to an Internet statement.
- Kuwait Blocks Sites That Incite Violence
   Kuwait is blocking Islamic Web sites that incite violence as part of
its all-out war on   terror following recent clashes with
fundamentalists who allegedly planned to attack   Americans and the
country's security forces, a senior official said Monday.
- The Lookout: Acrobat Bugs
   Adobe Systems Inc. has warned of two serious security flaws affecting
Microsoft Windows,   Mac OS X, and Unix versions of its Acrobat
software.
- Security Watch: Beating the MSN Virus
   That buddy trying to unexpectedly send you a file is no friend of
yours.
- Microsoft's Updates: Out of Control
   It's time for a new, clean version of Windows XP.
- Spamhaus.org: Warning 'Taken Out of Context'
   Spammers have more-sophisticated software and most likely will be able
to adapt to the   changing nature of e-mail and network infrastructures.
Proxy spamware appears to be more   than ISPs can handle, at least for
the moment. But Spamhaus warns that it promises to   generate even more
spam.
- Anti-Spyware Consortium Falls Apart
   A high-powered coalition of anti-spyware vendors has collapsed amid a
rash of acrimony and   finger-pointing.
- U.S. Capital Seeks Ban on Graphic Video Games
   WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Local politicians in the U.S. capital are
trying to ban the sale of   violent and sexually explicit video games to
minors in Washington despite failed efforts   in other parts of the
country
- What Websites Do to Turn On Teens
   If you're designing a website aimed at teenagers, you'd better not
make the text too   small. That's not because teens have bad eyes, but
because teenagers tend to lean back in   their chairs when they're at
their computers.

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----------------------------------


Children 'lack web safety advice'

Nearly one in three UK children have not had any lessons on how to use
the internet safely, a study suggests.

Those most at risk of encountering pornography or paedophiles were the
most expert computer users, the survey of nine to 19-year-olds found.

They entered sites more adventurously, ignoring safety concerns, London
School of Economics researchers said.

Those who stuck to a narrower range of sites were less likely to be
exposed, the survey of 1,500 young people added.

Bullying

Even children whose internet use was supervised by their parents were
not protected from the dangers.

The number exposed to internet porn, bullying and invasions of privacy
was likely to rise without greater efforts to make internet use safe.

Professor Sonia Livingstone, who conducted the research, said: "We are
talking about contact risks, children giving out personal information
online, going into chat rooms without knowing the safety rules and
possibly meeting people they first met in a chat room."

She added: "We began with the assumption that as children use the
internet and became more skilled they would manage to avoid the risks.

"We found the opposite was true."

'More effort'

The research involved a series of focus group discussions and a UK-wide
survey.

It found children who avoided the risks were able to do so "by making
only a narrow and unadventurous use of the internet".

Prof Livingstone said: "Restricting children and young people's internet
use reduces the risks but also carries a cost because it reduces their
opportunities online.

"It is of concern that even the most skilled young people are not
avoiding online risks.

"If we want to make sure that in five years' time young people aren't at
greater risk online, more effort is needed to make the internet safer
for them."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/education/4248113.stm

--------------------------

Also in this issue.

- Microsoft releases bumper patches
   Microsoft has warned PC users to update their systems with the latest
security fixes for   flaws in Windows programs.
- Children 'lack web safety advice'
   Nearly one in three UK children have not had any lessons on how to use
the internet   safely, a study suggests.
- Dipping Shorelines May Predict Tsunamis
   Microorganisms Along Shoreline May Be Key to Anticipating the Next
Tsunami
- Microprocessor Challenge to Intel Launched
   Setting up a battle for the future of computing, engineers from IBM,
Sony and Toshiba   unveiled details Monday of a microprocessor they
claim has the muscle of a supercomputer   and can power everything from
video game consoles to business computers
- MS buys antivirus firm
   Microsoft has bought an antivirus software company to provide 'much
needed' content   security at the gateway for its Exchange messaging
servers
- Ask Jeeves Acquires Blog Aggregator
   Second-tier search provider Ask Jeeves Inc. has purchased Bloglines.
- Big Blue unveils budget Linux servers
   IBM today lifted the lid on a range of entry-level Unix and Linux
servers based on its   Power5 processor architecture.
- Microsoft Releases Critical Fixes
   Microsoft Corp. released eight security fixes Tuesday that carry its
highest threat rating   and urged computer users to download and install
them quickly because all the   vulnerabilities they address could let
attackers take complete control of systems.
- Blog At Your Own Risk
   Suffering from "pure boredom" while working as a features writer for a
North Carolina   newspaper, Rachel Mosteller began keeping an online
journal.
- What Exactly Is Under the Sea?
   The nuclear-powered submarine USS San Francisco was heading toward
Australia on Jan. 8   when it hit an underwater mountain not marked on
naval charts.
- MSN Messenger service suffers outage
   MSN Messenger users were having trouble communicating on Tuesday, as
Microsoft's instant   message service suffered intermittent outages.
- How to Hook the Elusive Phisher
   Ann Chapman thought it was strange that MSN, Microsoft's online
service, was asking her to   go to a Web site and re-enter her
credit-card number. So she mentioned it to her   son-in-law. He took the
e-mail to his employer: Microsoft. Thus began an epic hunt to find   a
phisher.
- Radio to the MP3 degree: Podcasting
   SEATTLE - Big tech and media companies could not have foreseen this
potentially disruptive   hitch to their grand strategies.
- Telecoms Urge Light Regulatory Touch for Internet
   Major telecommunications equipment providers on Wednesday pressed U.S.
House lawmakers to   take a hands-off approach to regulating new
Internet-based services so innovation can   flourish and they can
compete.
- Tecmo Sues Internet Users for Video Game Hacking
   Tecmo Inc. has sued users of an Internet message board devoted to
hacking into popular     games, including its "Ninja Gaiden" and "Dead
or Alive," to change their codes, the     publisher said on Wednesday.
- Google Releases Test of Mapping Service
   Web search leader Google Inc. <GOOG.O> on Tuesday released a new map
service that helps     users get driving directions and search for
restaurants and other businesses.


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-----------------------------------

MSN Logged on For Attacks

Techtree News Staff
Publishing date: 2005-02-11 18:15:33

Core Security Technologies, has published a vulnerability in Microsoft's
MSN Messenger, an instant messaging program currently used by over 130
million people worldwide. A patch for this had been issued on Tuesday.

Core Security Technologies, has published a vulnerability in Microsoft's
MSN Messenger, an instant messaging program currently used by over 130
million people worldwide. A patch for this had been issued on Tuesday.

Core Security is a Boston, U.S.-based information security solutions
company.

Core researchers discovered that by selecting a specially-crafted
graphic as the user's display picture in MSN Messenger, an attacker
could trigger a buffer overflow vulnerability on the chat partner's
computer and covertly take over machines running instant messaging
software.

The attack would travel through the established chat session and would
pass unnoticed by firewalls, network intrusion detection systems and
even host-based personal firewalls and antivirus software. According to
the vendor, Windows Messenger and Windows Media Player are also affected
by this vulnerability.

"This is a critical security flaw since it directly affects more than
130 million users and because the attack is very likely to go unnoticed
by the several layers of security countermeasures commonly used today,
said Ivan Arce, CTO at Core Security Technologies.

"Since initially reporting the flaw, we have been working closely with
the vendor and we are pleased to see that a fix is now available."

The MSN Messenger protocol allows for the transmission of images between
users during electronic conversations. The image format used to transfer
those images is called Proprietary Network Graphics (PNG). When a user
selects a picture to be displayed, Messenger converts it to the PNG
format, with a fixed size and encoding characteristics. These images are
then transmitted over the same communication channel used to exchange
text messages. By sending a specially crafted PNG image, an attacker can
trigger a buffer overflow and execute arbitrary code on the chat
partner's machine.

Systems running vulnerable MSN Messenger clients on Windows XP with
Service Pack 2 installed are also exploitable.

The vulnerability is exploitable in MSN Messenger client software up to
version 6 including binary files compiled with the Visual Studio GS
stack overflow protection mechanism. MSN Messenger 7 (beta) clients are
not vulnerable.

Exploitation of the vulnerability can be carried out though the same
communications channel used by legitimate users for normal chat
sessions, therefore it is very difficult to differentiate attacks from
normal traffic.

Article available at-
http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp/showstory.jsp?storyid=57598

-------------------------------

Also in this issue:

- Microsoft seeking spyware trojan
   Microsoft is investigating a trojan program that attempts to switch
off the firm's   anti-spyware software.
- Why Cell will get the hard sell
   The world is casting its gaze on the Cell processor for the first
time, but what is so   important about it, and why is it so different?
- The online battle for Iraq
   Pro-insurgency sites a tool for rebels, reporters and U.S. military
- Web site traces African-American migration
   NEW YORK (AP) -- At the start of Black History Month, the Schomburg
Center for Research in   Black Culture announced the creation of an
education project focusing on black migration   over the past 400 years.
- Google by the Numbers
   Google (GOOG) blows away so many people with its financials that it is
easy to lose sight   of what's really driving the business: It uses the
network as a competitive weapon.
- Yahoo Sees Small Victory in Nazi Dispute
   Yahoo Declares Small Victory in Nazi Memorabilia Dispute, As Court
Agrees to Rehear   Arguments
- Boston Plans Wireless Access in Subways
   Commuters will soon be able to use their mobile phones and personal
digital assistants at   four of Boston's busiest subway stations by this
fall.
- Mobile Devices on Virus Alert for 2005 Says IBM
   According to a Global Security Intelligence Services team report from
IBM, mobile devices   could see a substantial up tick in viruses and
worms this year.
- MSN Logged on For Attacks
   Core Security Technologies, has published a vulnerability in
Microsoft's MSN Messenger, an   instant messaging program currently used
by over 130 million people worldwide. A patch for   this had been issued
on Tuesday.
- Free Expression Can Be Costly When Bloggers Bad-Mouth Jobs
   Under the pseudonym of Sarcastic Journalist, Rachel Mosteller wrote
this entry on her   personal Web log one day last April:
- Yahoo Sees Small Victory in Nazi Dispute
   SAN JOSE, Calif. - Free speech activists and Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO -
news) declared a   small victory Thursday in a dispute over whether the
e-commerce giant can host auctions   for Nazi memorabilia on its U.S.
sites.
- Yahoo Releases Toolbar Beta For Firefox
   Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) on Thursday launched a beta release of
a toolbar for   Mozilla Firefox, a sign of the increasing popularity of
the open-source web browser.
- High-tech 'boot camp' sign of the times
   Roberta Fox was looking over some recent corporate press releases and
spotted a disturbing   pattern. By the time she added up it all up, she
calculated that between Nov. 1, 2004, and   March 31 this year, some
11,000 people were expected to be cut loose from Canada's   technology
and telecom industries.
- Bacteria will soon move your mobiles.
   If you are fed up with carrying a bulky mobile charger everyday in
your wallet, then this   one is for you. A new technology will enable
mobile users to get connected to the world   with the help of bacteria.
- How to Hook the Elusive Phisher
   Ann Chapman thought it was strange that MSN, Microsoft's online
service, was asking her to   go to a Web site and re-enter her
credit-card number. So she mentioned it to her   son-in-law. He took the
e-mail to his employer: Microsoft. Thus began an epic hunt to find   a
phisher.
- Virtual Jihad
   Radical Islamic Web sites are encouraging their supporters to wage
holy war online. Their   exhortations underscore U.S. vulnerability to
cyberterror
- Dialing for fewer dollars
   Sarah Malik, a Pakistani-born doctor living in New York City,
understands the value of a   telephone call. With family sprinkled
throughout Pakistan and Great Britain, Malik, 29,   used to spend $250 a
month on international calls plus an additional $70 for domestic
service. Then she came across an ad for "voice over Internet protocol"
(VOIP), a   technology that allows her to chat for less over a
high-speed Internet connection. In   September she swapped her AT&T
long-distance plan for CallVantage, the company's VOIP   service. Now
her bill is around $100 a month.
- How Google is working to create a massive virtual library
   It looks like Google has struck an agreement with some of the nation's
leading   libraries-including Harvard, Stanford, and the New York Public
Library-as well as Oxford   University to begin digitizing their
holdings.



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Police: Valentine's Day suicide plot preyed on vulnerable women


PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) -- In an Internet chat room, a man reached out to
more than two dozen emotionally fragile women, but prosecutors say he
wasn't looking for dates. Instead, he allegedly tried to persuade them
to end their lives on the day love is celebrated.

Gerald Krein, 26, is charged with solicitation to commit murder for
organizing a mass suicide on Valentine's Day, possibly while the female
participants were all logged online at the same time, said Klamath
County Sheriff Tim Evinger.

Prosecutors were expected to add an attempted manslaughter charge on
Monday, when they were expected to take the case to a grand jury.

"The common theme is that these were women who were vulnerable, who were
depressed," said Evinger. "He invited them to engage in certain sexual
acts with him -- and then they were to hang themselves naked from a beam
in his house."

Combing through old chat room records, investigators discovered that
Krein had been trying to entice women across North America to commit
suicide as far back as 2000, Evinger said. Krein told investigators he
had been in touch with 31 women, authorities said.

County Prosecutor Ed Caleb said no one knows for sure whether Krein
intended to bring participants to his home or conduct the suicide over
the Internet. Because Krein was living in a mobile home while organizing
the suicide, the idea of hanging bodies from beams may indicate the idea
was a fantasy.

"Because he lived in a mobile home, it's clear that he was either
engaging in some kind of fantasy. Or else that he planned for it to
happen somewhere else," Caleb said on Sunday.

No deaths had been found that were linked to Krein, the sheriff said.
However, he said he would not be surprised if someone had killed herself
as a result of Krein's alleged activities.

"My concern is if he's been doing this for some time -- it's my hope
that he hasn't been successful -- but it could turn out that he has
been," Evinger said.

Detectives learned of the Valentine's Day plan from a woman in Ontario,
Canada, who said she saw a message in a Yahoo chat room that had
"Suicide Ideology" in the title. The chat room is no longer active.

The woman told detectives she was going to take part in the suicide but
had second thoughts when another chat room participant talked about
killing her children before taking her own life, Evinger said.

Krein was arrested Wednesday at his mother's home in the southern Oregon
town of Klamath Falls. He moved to Oregon about a year ago from the
Sacramento, California, area to take care of his ailing father, Evinger
said.

So far, investigators have tracked down four of the women Krein was in
contact with: the woman who came forward in Canada and three others
living in Oregon, Missouri and Virginia.

"In the Missouri and Virginia case, he was inviting them to bring their
children with them," said Evinger. "It would have been four children
total."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/02/14/valentine.suicide.ap/index.html

-----------------------------------

Also in this issue:

- Man held over alleged Internet suicide plot
   Officials uncertain whether plan is hoax
- A wireless world on the horizon
   With more and more technology nudging its way into our homes, more and
more data is being   transmitted.
- BM: Virus Threats Spreading Beyond Computers
   IBM says in its 2004 Global Business Security Index Report that a
growing number of   devices other than traditional computers are
vulnerable to virus attacks, represeenting a   "new frontier" for
malware. During 2004, attacks on PDAs and other mobile devices
increased significantly.
- Search Engine Math
   Forget power searching. Don't worry about learning to do a "Boolean"
search. All most   people need to know is a little basic "search engine
math" in order to improve their   results. Come learn how to easily add,
subtract and multiply your way into better searches   at your favorite
search engine.
- Boolean Searching
   Boolean search commands have been used by professionals for searching
through traditional   databases for years.
- Search Features Chart
   The search engine features chart below is designed primarily for users
of search engines.   It summarizes key search commands and search
assistance features.
- Police: Valentine's Day suicide plot preyed on vulnerable women
   In an Internet chat room, a man reached out to more than two dozen
emotionally fragile   women, but prosecutors say he wasn't looking for
dates. Instead, he allegedly tried to   persuade them to end their lives
on the day love is celebrated.
- 'Podcasting' takes broadcasting to the Internet
   After getting a taste of the radio business in college, software
designer Craig Patchett   never lost his interest in broadcasting. But
without a job in radio, it seemed likely to   remain one of those
unfulfilled passions -- until something called "podcasting" came
along.
- China net cafe culture crackdown
   Chinese authorities closed 12,575 net cafes in the closing months of
2004, the country's   government said.
- Giants to tackle Viagra spam ring
   Software giant Microsoft and the world's biggest drug company Pfizer
are getting into bed   together to combat an internet Viagra spam ring.
- Microsoft shifts tactics for security on Internet
   Microsoft appears to have fumbled its plan to make its Passport system
the Internet's   turnstile, but don't write off the company just yet.
- Net services all over the map
   A reporter takes online mapping for a spin in an attempt to steer
travelers in the right   direction.
- New Tools Making Online Work Easier
   This scenario is all too familiar to office workers who collaborate
electronically on   projects: E-mails get passed around with differing
versions of documents-in-progress   attached. Instant messages whizz by.
Web sites are cited, then lost. It's often a jumbled   mess, with no
central online location for shared data. There must be a better way.
- Romance, and everything else, lurk in cyberspace
   After a few years of cyber-courtships, here is what I've learned:
- Intel plans to dress up desktop PCs
   New technology will transform the home computer, analysts say




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Security conference focuses on spyware, pop-up threat

By Matthew Fordahl / AP Technology Writer
http://www.detnews.com/2005/technology/0502/15/tech-90143.htm

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Unwanted programs that spy on PC users, deliver
pop-up ads and track Web surfing habits will be a hot topic at a
security conference that's usually more focused on viruses, hackers and
the encryption of sensitive information.

So-called spyware and adware have been around for years but have largely
been viewed as more of an annoyance than a security threat. Such
programs are often installed on PCs when users agree to a license for
free software without reading it, though later versions take advantage
of flaws in Web browsers and operating systems.

Recently the problem has developed into a major headache not only for
home users whose PCs choke on a flurry of pop-up windows but also
corporate computer users who run the risk of lost productivity and
pilfered data from such programs.

Spyware and adware "have gone past the point of annoying to really
becoming cost centers for corporations," said Jayshree Ullal, senior
vice president of Cisco Systems Inc.'s security technology group. "They
are where viruses used to be five to 10 years ago."

More than 11,000 people were expected at the RSA Conference in San
Francisco this week. Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates was to
deliver the opening speech on Tuesday. Other speakers include Symantec
Corp. Chief Executive John Thompson and Cisco CEO John Chambers.

Gates, who is now Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect, was
expected to shed light on the company's plans to protect its customers
from spyware. Microsoft released its own anti-spyware offering earlier
this year.

Microsoft also was expected to announce moves in protecting computers
from viruses following its recent acquisition of two antivirus
companies, though it's not clear whether such announcements would come
at the conference. The company repeatedly declined to comment before the
speech.

Cisco was to show off the latest phase of its strategy to protect
corporate networks from attacks. The network equipment maker is
announcing 10 new products, services and software enhancements to give
corporate network administrators more protection.

The strategy doesn't attempt to fix only desktops but secure the entire
network, Ullal said. And it focuses on all unwanted programs -- from
worms and viruses to spyware and adware.

"Our view of security is that it's too important to do in isolation,"
she said. "Increasingly, we're integrating it more and more with our
infrastructure routers and Internet switches as well."

Security software companies also are increasingly adding spyware and
adware to their lists of programs to find and remove. They are
integrating features of programs that have been sold separately by
companies focusing on spyware and adware removal.

Symantec, for instance, unveiled a new version of its corporate computer
security software that promises such "comprehensive" protection. The
updated programs are expected to be available next month.

"Customers are looking for spyware and adware protection from their
antivirus vendor, a partner they trust," said Brian Foster, Symantec's
senior director of product management for client and host security.

McAfee Inc., another antivirus company, also is putting a greater focus
on spyware and adware with its McAfee Anti-Spyware Enterprise for
corporations. It will be available March 2.

"It's only been the past year or year-and-a-half now, where spyware and
adware specifically have taken a hold in the Internet culture and become
a great problem," said Vincent Gullotto, vice president of McAfee's
Antivirus and Vulnerability Emergency Response Team.

McAfee also is announcing that it will send out updates of its virus
definitions on a daily, rather than weekly basis. The new program starts
Feb. 24 for its corporate clients. The more frequent updates will be
available for its retail software in about three months, Gullotto said.

--------------------------

Also in this issue.

- 'Suicide Pact' Woman Thought It Was a Joke
   College senior Jaime Shockman was at home working on her computer when
an instant message   popped up at the bottom of her screen. It was an
invitation to die.
- Major security vendors like Symantec and McAfee are eager to learn
about Microsoft?s plan   to sell tech-security software.
   The competitors will be listening to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates
keynote address today,   at the RSA security conference at San
Francisco, for clues to help them acquire a position   as the world's
largest software maker makes its way into the $11.3 billion
tech-security   market.
- Bill Gates and other communists
   When CNET News.com asked Bill Gates about software patents, he shifted
the subject to   "intellectual property," blurring the issue with
various other laws.
- Low-cost Mac gives Windows a run for its money
   Windows users beset by computer viruses and spyware are hungry for
alternatives. And, with   impeccable timing, Apple Computer has released
its first truly affordable Macintosh   machine in a major bid to woo the
PC-using masses.
- UW ponders how to best store and retrieve electronic information
   When University of Washington professor William Jones gives speeches,
he likes to ask the   audience what he calls "the Google question."
- Internet serves as proving ground
   Many observers view the resignation of veteran CNN executive Eason
Jordan, after a   drumbeat of Internet criticism over his remarks about
journalists being targeted by the   U.S. military in Iraq (news - web
sites), as evidence of Web bloggers' increasing clout.
- Anti-virus companies ready and willing to take on Microsoft
   Many of the 11,000 tech executives and analysts flocking to San
Francisco this week for   the giant RSA security conference arrived
eager to learn whether Microsoft will uncloak   details of its plan to
sell tech-security software.
- White House may make NSA the 'traffic cop' over U.S. computer networks
   The Bush administration is considering making the National Security
Agency -- famous for   eavesdropping and code breaking -- its "traffic
cop" for ambitious plans to share homeland   security information across
government computer networks, a senior NSA official says.
- Firefox plugin delivers HTML-style audio and video browsing
   Australia's CSIRO research organisation has developed a Firefox plugin
named Annodex that   allows browsing through time-continuous media such
as audio and video in the same way that   HTML allows browsing through
text.
- Porn complaints soar
   THE number of hotline complaints to regulators about internet
pornography - especially   child pornography - has soared more than 300
per cent since the scheme was setup in 2000.
- Security conference focuses on spyware, pop-up threat
   Unwanted programs that spy on PC users, deliver pop-up ads and track
Web surfing habits   will be a hot topic at a security conference that's
usually more focused on viruses,     hackers and the encryption of
sensitive information.


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----------------------------------------------------

Hackers May Have Stolen Californians' Data

Data Collection Firm Warns Californians That Hackers May Have Stolen
Private Information

By RACHEL KONRAD
The Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/print?id=504132

Feb. 16, 2005 - A company that collects consumer data warned thousands
of Californians that hackers penetrated the company's computer network
and may have stolen credit reports, Social Security numbers and other
sensitive information.

ChoicePoint Inc., which sells such data to government agencies and a
variety of companies, acknowledged Tuesday that several hackers broke
into its computer database and purloined data from as many as 35,000
Californians.

Last fall, hackers apparently used stolen identities to create what
appeared to be legitimate businesses seeking ChoicePoint accounts, said
Chuck Jones, a spokesman for Alpharetta, Ga.-based company. They opened
about 50 accounts.

The attack appears to have resulted in at least six cases of identity
theft in Los Angeles County. It's unclear whether the data of people
outside California was exposed. But law enforcement agents, who have
arrested one person on six counts of theft, say hundreds of thousands of
Americans elsewhere may be at risk.

ChoicePoint has not notified consumers in other states, nor is it
working with law enforcement agents elsewhere, Jones said.

"California is the focus of the investigation and we don't have any
evidence to indicate at this point that the situation has spread beyond
California," Jones said. "If at some point in time we get information
that it's in other areas, we'll revisit the disclosure."

Security experts dismissed the notion that hackers would limit their
attack geographically.

"I've never heard of a hacker doing something just to make a company
comply with a state statute that's ridiculous," said Nick Akerman,
partner and co-chair of the computer fraud division of law firm Dorsey &
Whitney. "It'd be like robbing a bank that wasn't FDIC insured so the
robber wouldn't have to be prosecuted by the FBI."

When ChoicePoint discovered the crime in October, it closed the suspect
accounts, restricted access, strengthened site verification, informed
law enforcement agencies and cooperated in their investigation.

On Oct. 27, California sheriff deputies arrested Olatunji Oluwatosin,
41, when the Nigerian national went to his office to receive a fax
ostensibly from ChoicePoint. Police were waiting for the North Hollywood
resident at his office in Los Angeles. He's been in jail since then and
is scheduled to appear in Los Angeles County Court on Thursday.

Robert Costa, the lieutenant in charge of Southern California's High
Tech Task Force Identity Theft Detail, said agents believe several other
people were involved.

"It definitely could not have been limited to Southern California,"
Costa said.

ChoicePoint sent e-mail notifications to Californians last week.

State residents were the only Americans notified because the state has a
unique law requiring companies that do business with residents to warn
them when they've had holes in corporate computer networks. Since the
law went into effect in July 2003, organizations have alerted customers
whenever "unencrypted personal information was, or is reasonably
believed to have been, acquired by an unauthorized person."

The bill defines "personal information" as an individual's first name or
initial and last name, with one of the following: Social Security
number; driver's license number; state identification number; or credit
or debit card account number and security code. Except when disclosure
would impede a criminal investigation, companies must notify consumers
"in the most expedient time possible."

The law doesn't impose specific fines but makes companies with
questionable computer networks more vulnerable to lawsuits and public
scorn. If a hacker gains access to data for 500,000 or more customers,
the company must alert those people through e-mail, a "conspicuous"
posting on a Web site and disclosure to a major media outlet.

Identity theft is the country's fastest-growing crime, and more than 9.9
million Americans were victims last year. The crimes cost a total of $5
billion, not including lost productivity, according to the U.S. Postal
Inspection Service.

One of the biggest breaches happened in October, when a University of
California network exposed personal data of 1.4 million Californians.
The computer database in Berkeley contained names, addresses, phone
numbers, Social Security numbers and birthdays of everyone who
participated in a state in-home care program since 2001.

The ChoicePoint attack could galvanize support for a federal law
protecting consumers from corporate security breaches. New Hampshire,
New York and Texas politicians are considering similar bills, and Sen.
Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., reintroduced legislation last month for a
national version of the California law.

"This is a nightmare scenario for the company and for consumers," said
Matt Stevens, chief technology officer at Network Intelligence Inc., a
database security company in Westwood, Mass. "More of these incidences
and people will wake up. Right now you've got people in Massachusetts
saying, `Hey, why am I less important than people in California?'"

----------------------------------------

Also in this issue:

- Have a blog, lose your job?
   Workers with Web logs are everywhere, and they're starting to make
corporate America very   nervous.
- Online banking use soars
   Study says 44% of adult Internet users manage funds online, the
fastest growing Web   activity.
- Parents protest radio ID tags for students
   The only grade school in this rural town is requiring students to wear
radio frequency   identification badges that can track their every move.
Some parents are outraged, fearing   it will rob their children of
privacy.
- Security scares spark browser fix
   Microsoft is working on a new version of its Internet Explorer web
browser.
   The revamp has been prompted by Microsoft's growing concern with
security as well as   increased competition from rival browsers.
- Britons fed up with net service
   A survey conducted by PC Pro Magazine has revealed that many Britons
are unhappy with       their internet service. They are fed up with slow
speeds, high prices and the level of   customer service they receive.
- T-Mobile bets on 'pocket office'
   T-Mobile has launched its latest "pocket office" third-generation (3G)
device which also   has built-in wi-fi - high-speed wireless net access
- Hackers May Have Stolen Californians' Data
   A company that collects consumer data warned thousands of Californians
that hackers   penetrated the company's computer network and may have
stolen credit reports, Social   Security numbers and other sensitive
information.
- Apple sues three journalists for emails
   The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is calling for court
protection for three   journalists targeted by Apple.
- E-Mail Bug Made Computers Phone Emergency Line
   A Louisiana man has pleaded guilty to sending rigged e-mails that
caused some computers to   dial the 911 emergency services number,
prosecutors said on Monday.
- Database giant gives access to fake firms
   ChoicePoint warns more than 30,000 they may be at risk
- Alleged mobsters guilty in vast Net, phone fraud
   Mafia scheme said to have netted $659 million over 7 years
- Microsoft probes spyware system attack
   Microsoft Corp. is investigating a malicious program that attempts to
turn off the   company's newly released anti-spyware software for
Windows computers.
- Security conference focuses on spyware, pop-up threat
   Unwanted programs that spy on PC users, deliver pop-up ads and track
Web surfing habits   will be a hot topic at a security conference that's
usually more focused on viruses,   hackers and the encryption of
sensitive information.



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----------------------------------------------------

More Watchful, Probably Not Safer

By Kim Zetter
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,66616,00.html

Are you safer now than you were four years ago?

That was the question politicians posed to voters last year during the
presidential campaign. Voters who opted to give the administration four
more years presumably would answer in the affirmative.

But according to a new book, that optimism would be misplaced.

Safe: The Race to Protect Ourselves in a Newly Dangerous World, written
by three contributing writers to Wired magazine and a former editor of
that publication, asks why, if our society is one of the most
technologically advanced in the world, we can't protect ourselves from
threats to our safety.

Despite the fact that a second attack of 9/11 proportions hasn't
occurred, the experts surveyed in this book -- academics, scientists,
engineers and civil servants -- haven't relaxed in that knowledge.

That's because even though the U.S. government has spent millions on
technological cure-alls marketed by company executives, the money has
not been spent wisely -- largely, the experts argue, because the
government has focused on responding to the last attack, rather than
preparing for the next one.

Efforts spent developing and implementing airport watch lists that are
easily thwarted and biometrics that are not fully proven have distracted
from the more serious tasks of preparing for biological, chemical or
nuclear attacks that many experts feel are the next real threats. While
airline passengers surrender nail clippers and Zippo lighters, for
example, millions of cargo containers pass through metropolitan shipping
ports each day with less than 5 percent of them being inspected.

It should have been no surprise, then, when Italian police patrolling a
waterfront in October 2001 heard noises coming from a sealed cargo
container and found a well-dressed Egyptian man inside carrying a
laptop, satellite phone, airport maps and security badges.

But that wasn't nearly as disconcerting as when an ABC News crew
discovered in 2002 that it could ship unenriched uranium in a cargo
container from Turkey to the United States without it being detected.
They repeated the exercise a year later with the same results.

A nuclear bomb in a container package or a more silent chemical attack
in a large city are the kinds of scenarios that people like Stephen
Flynn, a former Coast Guard commander and now a homeland security expert
with the Council on Foreign Relations, worry about.

And that's the real focus of this book, not the dire predictions and
dismal scenarios, but the scientists and engineers who are tackling the
complex issues that can't be solved with the kinds of simple
technological solutions that governments like to deploy.

They're people who spend their days using computers to model the
behavior of proteins inside cells or gauge the cascading effects of a
power failure. Or they spend their time asking questions like, what
would happen if terrorists bombed crucial railroad bridges and
junctions, and rail traffic came to a halt? One answer is that a lot of
the chlorine that is used to purify the nation's water supply would be
prevented from reaching its destination.

The book also examines the ways in which research and innovative ideas
often get squelched because the people with real solutions don't have
access to the people and funds that can do something about them.

As the authors write in their introduction, few experts "have forums in
which their debates can be heard, let alone privileged access to
political leadership."

Prior to 9/11, for example, Flynn and others tried to get the government
and shipping companies to take port security seriously. At one
presentation before the 9/11 attacks, Flynn tried to get his point
across by juxtaposing a picture of Osama bin Laden with a photo of a
container ship.

"After September 11," he told the authors, "I was the only guy who
didn't need to change his slide show."

Now, at least, he's being taken more seriously, and the government has
started to fund research into security products that would help
authorities better secure the contents of cargo containers and track
their whereabouts.

Often, the government opts for simple solutions over complex ones that
might be more effective, simply because the complex solutions cause
politicians' eyes to glaze over.

One example of a simple solution being ineffective is the Department of
Homeland Security's Biowatch early-warning project, which piggybacks on
equipment designed to measure pollen counts in the air. The sensors now
collect air samples to measure the presence of biological agents as
well, which then undergo numerous lab tests that are fairly pointless.
Why pointless? Because there is usually only one collection point in a
city, and unless a biological agent is released right at the collection
point, it isn't likely to register in an air sample.

Instead of more technologies, the experts and authors argue, we need
smarter technologies. And we also need to know when to forego technology
altogether in favor of human-based solutions. These are the kinds of
solutions advocated by people like Rafi Ron, former director of security
at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel-Aviv, Israel, who has helped train U.S.
security personnel in recognizing the subtle clues that people who are
intent on causing harm often give off.

Paul Ekman, a professor of psychology at the University of California at
San Francisco medical school and an expert in the physiology of emotion
and nonverbal communication, has also been training law enforcement
officials for years in how to read the tiny facial expressions that
betray the inner emotions of people who are lying or being deceptive.

As an example of where human intuition and experience can beat out
technology, the authors of Safe recount the incident in 1999 when a U.S.
Customs agent in Washington state stopped a man driving across the
border from Canada simply because the driver seemed jittery.

There wasn't any computer watch list or biometric machinery that could
have told the agent to flag him for further inspection -- he'd never
done anything to get him on a list -- but a closer examination of his
car trunk revealed a stash of more than 100 pounds of explosive
materials. It turns out he was headed to Los Angeles International
Airport to detonate the materials in his car at the turn of the
millennium.

While the book is well-researched and well-written, it's difficult to
discern its intended purpose or market. On the dust jacket, the central
premise for the book seems to be to answer why such a technically savvy
country can't secure itself. This seems to imply that the book will
examine the pros and cons of current technologies and offer solutions
with regard to better technologies that could make us safer. We do get
some of this, but only in bits and pieces woven throughout the profiles
of technologists and their technologies -- some of which has been
written about elsewhere.

And one of the more interesting topics addressed in the book --
open-source research and innovation, in which researchers would build
off the work of each other -- is only touched upon in a few places. It
would have been nice to have this explored in a more comprehensive way.

--------------------------------

Also in this issue:

- PCs do thousands of years of work
   A global network of computer users has clocked up more than 4,000
years' worth of computer   calculations in under three months as part of
a huge grid project.
- Hi-tech answers to pupil problems
   The perennial school problems of bullying and truancy are back on the
agenda as education   minister Ruth Kelly pledges a tough stance on
school discipline.
- Tools to ease Web collaboration
   Joe Kraus, CEO of JotSpot.com, is betting on a future explosion of
so-called Wikis, a type   of Web page that can be edited by anyone.
- Experts: Cyber-crime bigger threat than cyber-terror
   As David Perry left a cyber-security conference in Luxembourg in 2004,
an airport terminal   handling international flights was in chaos.
- Napster Refutes Flawed Protection Claims
   Less than three weeks after Napster Inc. began touting its
all-you-can-rent music   subscription service, the company finds itself
refuting Internet claims that its   copy-protection measures are flawed.
- Tutankhamun Murder Mystery Hangs on March Report
   A team of experts expects to announce in March whether the latest test
results on the   mummified body of Tutankhamun will provide evidence for
the theory that the boy pharaoh   was murdered.
- Microsoft Anti-Spyware Tool Will Be Free
   Microsoft on Tuesday confirmed plans for Anti-virus and anti-spyware
products for   enterprise customers, the company stopped short of giving
details on pricing and release   dates.
- MyDoom Worm Spreads Via Search Engines
   Latest variant finds e-mail address on your hard drive and on search
engines.
- '24' Makes Britain a Hotbed for Illicit TV Downloads
   Britain has emerged as the world's biggest market for downloading
pirated TV, driven by   tech-savvy fans who are unwilling to wait for
popular U.S. shows such as "Desperate   Housewives."
- Iranian Cleric Blogs for Free Expression
   Blogging might not sound an appropriate hobby for a senior Iranian
government official,   particularly one who is a Muslim cleric.
- The Fight Over Cyber Oversight
   A recent security breach at data aggregator ChoicePoint was the topic
of conversation   Wednesday during a discussion about government
regulation and corporate liability at the   RSA Conference on security
in San Francisco.
- More Watchful, Probably Not Safer
   Are you safer now than you were four years ago? That was the question
politicians posed to   voters last year during the presidential
campaign. Voters who opted to give the   administration four more years
presumably would answer in the affirmative.
- Geeks to the Corps
   There are over 75 Geeks who are or have served their terms in projects
around the world.    They are an international bunch, hailing from North
America, Europe and Africa. You can     read about their adventures at
Geekhalla.



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----------------------------------------------

Intel promises light-speed computing

Chip maker claims world's first continuous wave silicon laser
http://www.vnunet.com/print/it/1161357

Intel has promised computing at the speed of light after using standard
silicon manufacturing processes to create the world's first continuous
wave silicon laser.

According to the chip giant, the technology could bring relatively
inexpensive, high-quality lasers and optical devices to mainstream use
in computing, communications and medical applications.

The breakthrough centres on using the so-called Raman effect and
silicon's crystalline structure to amplify light as it passes through
the material. When infused with light from an external source the chip
produces a continuous, high-quality laser beam.

While Intel acknowledged that the process is "still far from becoming a
commercial product", it promised that building lasers from standard
silicon could lead to inexpensive optical devices that move data inside
and between computers at the speed of light, ushering in a flood of new
applications for high-speed computing.

"Fundamentally, we have demonstrated for the first time that standard
silicon can be used to build devices that amplify light," said Dr Mario
Paniccia, director of Intel's Photonics Technology Lab.

"The use of high-quality photonic devices has been limited because they
are expensive to manufacture, assemble and package. This research is a
major step towards bringing the benefits of low-cost, high-bandwidth,
silicon-based optical devices to the mass market."

Intel explained that every computer already has a power supply to drive
the chips, hard disc and peripherals, but predicted that PCs will have a
supply for powering tiny lasers, amplifiers and optical interconnects
that move terabytes of data around the computer and across networks.

Building a Raman laser in silicon begins with etching a waveguide, a
conduit for light on a chip. Silicon is transparent to infrared light so
that when light is directed into a waveguide it can be contained and
channelled across a chip.

Like the first laser developed in 1960, Intel researchers used an
external light source to 'pump' light into its chip.

As light is pumped in, the natural atomic vibrations in silicon amplify
the light as it passes through the chip. This amplification, known as
the Raman effect, is more than 10,000 times stronger in silicon than in
glass fibres.

Raman lasers and amplifiers are used today in the telecoms industry and
rely on miles of fibre to amplify light. By using silicon, Intel said it
could achieve similar results using a silicon chip just a few
centimetres in size.
This article was printed from the VNU Network

----------------------------

Also in this issue:

- IBM puts cash behind Linux push
   IBM is spending $100m (£52m) over the next three years beefing up its
commitment to Linux   software.
- Warning on hard drives' security
   Organisations are failing to remove important information from
computer hard drives when   they dispose of them, researchers are
warning.
- Tsunami Uncovers Ancient City in India
   Officials from the Archeological Survey of India investigate an
ancient artifact which was   uncovered by the Dec. 26 tsunami near the
Shore Temple at Mahabalipuram, 45 miles south of   Madras, India,
Thursday Feb. 17, 2005.
- IRS Offers Online Tax Filing for Free
   In this week's Cybershake, we take a look at how the Internal Revenue
Service is helping   to reduce the amount of paper and money American
taxpayers spend on preparing their annual   income tax report. Plus, we
note what one tech pundit says about the new Mac Mini from   Apple.
- Random House to Enter Phone Text Market
   Over the past couple of years, the cell phone has emerged as a sound
system, a video game   player and a TV screen. Now, it could become the
latest outlet for books.
- 'Global warming real’ say new studies
   New computer models that look at ocean temperatures instead of the
atmosphere show the   clearest signal yet that global warming is well
underway, said Tim Barnett of the Scripps   Institution of Oceanography.
- Intel promises light-speed computing
   Intel has promised computing at the speed of light after using
standard silicon   manufacturing processes to create the world's first
continuous wave silicon laser.
- New variant of MyDoom virus targets Google (again)
   A new variant of the MyDoom virus, that uses Google, Lycos, Yahoo and
Altavista to search   for email addresses, is spreading rapidly
according to a number of anti-virus companies.
- Oldest Human Remains Pinpointed
   Bones discovered nearly 40 years ago in Ethiopia now appear to be the
oldest known fossils   of modern-looking humans, says an analysis that
suggests they come from around the dawn of   the species.
- Feds urged to tighten cybersecurity
   As experts warned that major cyberattacks could be brewing, a
government report gave U.S.   federal systems a "D+" for computer
security.
- Firefox reaches 25 million desktops
   Look out, Microsoft. That's the message this week from the Mozilla
Foundation, whose Web   browser Firefox has surpassed 25 million
downloads in 100 days.
- Lexus: Cabir won't infect our cars
   Automaker Lexus has denied that the Cabir wireless worm poses a risk
to the   Bluetooth-capable navigation systems featured in some of its
vehicles.
- News rethinks web
   RUPERT Murdoch's News Corporation is reassessing its global internet
strategy as the   medium attracts increasing advertising revenue.



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Terrorists' use of Internet spreads

By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story
<http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=711&u=/usatoday/20050221/tc_u
satoday/terroristsuseofinternetspreads&printer=1>
&cid=711&u=/usatoday/20050221/tc_usatoday/terroristsuseofinternetspreads
&printer=1

Cyberfraud, ranging from credit card theft to money laundering, is the
latest wrinkle in terrorists' use of the Internet.

It's "the new cash cow" for terrorists to finance operations, says John
Pironti, a security consultant at tech consultant Unisys. Online scams
are harder to trace because they are relayed through a sophisticated
network of individuals and Web sites worldwide, he says. And many
schemes originate from abroad, where cyberlaws don't exist or law
enforcement is lax.

In dozens of incidents the past few months, groups linked to terrorism
have stolen credit card numbers over the Internet, laundered money and
hijacked Web sites, security experts say.

The recent surge in activity has given counterterrorism specialists,
already concerned with threats to physical structures, another worry.
Like their colleagues in the FBI (news - web sites), Secret Service, the
Treasury Department (news - web sites) and elsewhere, they must bone up
on Internet technology to match wits with the criminals.

For several years, groups including al-Qaeda have used cyberspace for
communications, recruiting and propaganda. Now they've branched into
other areas. Credit card numbers are often swiped through hacking
attacks and phishing, fraudulent e-mails that trick consumers into
surrendering personal information.

There are indications terrorists may next steal trade secrets from U.S.
companies as their computer skills improve and they begin to work with
organized crime in Eastern Europe. The stolen documents could then be
sold to rogue foreign businesses or held for ransom, security experts
say.

Terrorism.org

A few months ago, Imam Samudra, convicted of masterminding the bombing
that killed 202 in Bali, Indonesia, in 2002, wrote a jailhouse manifesto
on the funding of terrorism through cyberfraud.

A chapter in his obscure autobiography - titled "Hacking, Why Not?" -
directs fellow Muslim radicals to Indonesian-language Web sites and chat
rooms for instructions on online credit card fraud and money laundering.
"Any man-made product contains weakness because man himself is a weak
creature," Samudra writes. "So it is with the Americans, who boast they
are a strong nation."

Evidence collected from Samudra's laptop showed he tried to finance the
bombing through cyberfraud, law-enforcement officials say.

In October, a suspected Palestinian supporter of Middle Eastern
terrorist groups posted several credit card numbers online and
instructions for stealing databases of other active credit card numbers
from the Web sites of U.S. businesses.

Internet use by terrorists mirrors that of criminals. While some
security experts fear a cyberstrike could disrupt power supplies to
millions of homes, disrupt air traffic control systems and shut down
water supplies, most agree terror groups are more likely to exploit the
Internet for financial gain and to spread propaganda. The number of
terrorist-related Web sites has rocketed to 4,350 from a dozen in 1997.

Terrorist organizations have graduated to the Internet to steal because
it reaches more potential victims and is harder to trace, says Evan
Kohlmann, an international terrorism consultant who runs the Web site
Globalterroralert.com.

Previously, militants used more conventional ways for funding, Kohlmann
says. The Roubaix gang in France robbed armored cars to help fund
terrorist activities in the mid-1990s. And the group behind the abortive
millennium attack on the Los Angeles airport robbed supermarkets in
Canada and engaged in traditional credit card fraud, he says.

"It is a paradox: Those movements who criticize Western technology and
modernity are using the West's most advanced communication technology,
the Internet, to spread their message," Gabriel Weimann, a professor in
Israel who follows cyberterrorism, said in an e-mail.

But the U.S. government should not dismiss the possibility of a
large-scale electronic attack by terrorists against the nation's
computer systems, says Richard Clarke, the former White House head of
counterterrorism. He made the comments at the RSA security conference in
San Francisco last week.

Digital cat and mouse

Federal investigators are locked in an escalating game of digital
cat-and-mouse with cyberterrorists. "The FBI understands that some
terrorist organizations, like criminals, could exploit the Internet to
further their goals," FBI spokeswoman Megan Baroska says. FBI policy
prohibits it from discussing ongoing investigations, she says.

The departments of Justice, State, Treasury and Homeland Security and
intelligence agencies have identified a broad range of potential
Internet vulnerabilities and are constantly developing policies. They
compare the fight against terrorist financing to the war against
money-laundering drug traffickers.

"As Internet technologies become more advanced, so do those who use them
for illicit and illegal activities," says Dexter Ingram, director of
information-security policy for the Business Software Alliance and a
former analyst for the House Committee on Homeland Security's
cybersecurity subcommittee. "Security must remain a continuous process.
It's a never-ending cycle."

Still, the feds' ranks are in flux. Robert Liscouski, assistant director
of the Department of Homeland Security, resigned in January after the
Bush administration nominated a federal judge to head the department.

In October, Amit Yoran, director of the department's cybersecurity
division, resigned amid criticism from the tech community that he lacked
clout.

Clarke has called for the appointment of a cybersecurity czar in the
White House to coordinate actions between the FBI, CIA (news - web
sites) and other government agencies.

"After 9/11, the emphasis has clearly been on physical infrastructure
rather than cybersecurity," says Paul Kurtz, executive director of the
Cyber Security Industry Alliance, a non-profit trade group of software
and hardware companies. "That's understandable. But cyberspace is where
the bad guys are going."

-----------------------------

Also in this issue:

- Tools to ease Web collaboration
   This scenario is all too familiar to office workers who collaborate
electronically on   projects: E-mails get passed around with differing
versions of documents-in-progress   attached. Instant messages whizz by.
Web sites are cited, then lost.
- Google Gmail launch edges closer
   Google has edged closer to launching its new Gmail service. The
company has invited the   people who registered an interest in Gmail,
which is still under development, to open a   free e-mail account.
- E-Mail Scams Claim Homeland Security Ties
   Federal authorities are investigating two e-mail scams, including one
targeting families   of soldiers killed in Iraq, that claim to be
connected to the Homeland Security   Department.
- Security experts: Hacking attacks rarely made public
   A security breach that placed consumers at risk for identity theft
grabbed headlines this   week but most hacking incidents go unreported
to police or the public, experts said on   Thursday.
- Microsoft plans new browser version
   Gates says Internet Explorer 7 will have security features to prevent
viruses, spyware,   'phishing.'
- Zoom lenses next for mobiles
   Varioptic, the French private company which invented a tiny liquid
lens for mobile phones,   said it has added an optical zoom which will
give a handset the same functionality as a   digital camera.
- Storage solutions of the future
   In the last of Click Online's series on computer data storage, Spencer
Kelly takes a look   at what projects experts are currently looking at.
- Global blogger action day called
   The global web blog community is being called into action to lend
support to two   imprisoned Iranian bloggers.
- Microsoft in Quandary Over Virus Security
   If Microsoft Corp. doesn't do more to stem Internet attacks, the
company risks further   alienating customers unhappy with the multitude
of threats already facing its ubiquitous   software.
- Mobile phones in US infected by virus
   A new mobile-phone virus was found in one of the US cellphone stores
last week as a   warning sign that virus-writers got accustomed to cell
phones and will soon be able to   destroy programs in mobile phones.
- Latest Google Toolbar includes translator, spell checker, map service
   Search engine firm Google has released the latest version of its
toolbar, a browser   plug-in that allows users to access various Google
tools without the need to navigate to   the Google homepage.
- SAMSUNG produces working prototype of next generation of computer
memory DDR3
   South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a player in advanced
memory technology, has   announced that it has produced, what it claims
to be the world's first DDR3 DRAM (dynamic   random access memory)
device.
- Terrorists' use of Internet spreads
   Cyberfraud, ranging from credit card theft to money laundering, is the
latest wrinkle in   terrorists' use of the Internet.
- Never Say Die: Live Forever
   Ray Kurzweil doesn't tailgate. A man who plans to live forever doesn't
take chances with   his health on the highway, or anywhere else.


Member: Association for International Business
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