Justice Dept. Database Stirs Privacy Fears
Washington Post (12/26/06) P. A7; Eggen, Dan
A huge database being constructed by the Justice Department intended to
allow local investigators around the country to access information held by
federal law enforcement agencies is receiving widespread disapproval from
privacy groups. There are currently one million records, from both open
and closed cases, in the database known as "OneDOJ," which can only be
accessed by 150 police departments at this time, but in three years the
number of case records is expected to triple, and the number of regional
authorities with access is expected to jump to 750. Privacy and civil
rights advocates see the database as a dangerous source of unfounded
details, particularly concerning people who have not been arrested or
charged with a crime. The ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project director
Barry Steinhardt says that, " Raw police files or FBI reports can never be
verified and can never be corrected. That is a problem with even more
formal and controlled systems. The idea that they're creating another
whole system that is going to be full of inaccurate information is just
chilling." He cites the 2003 statement by the FBI that it would no longer
recognize the Privacy Act's requirements for accuracy in the National Crime
Information Center, the main criminal-background-check database that is
utilized by 80,000 law enforcement agencies in the country. Others express
fear that the information disseminated by this system could make its way
into realms outside of law enforcement. Despite calls for a halt to the
project, the DOJ remains confident that One-DOJ will provide invaluable
assistance to local authorities by "essentially hooking them up to a pipe
that will take them into [the DOJ's] records."
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Congress in 2007: Privacy, Patents on Agenda
IDG News Service (12/22/06) Gross, Grant
The newly elected Democratic Congress has raised the hopes, and fears, of
many involved in the tech industry, as several issues that had died on the
floor are expected to be brought back to life in 2007. In late 2005,
Microsoft joined privacy advocates in demanding data protection standards
and personal data-privacy legislation, and as the issue becomes more
prevalent, cybersecurity vendors and others will renew a focus on this
concern. The conflict will continue between large companies that wish to
put an end to what they call patent "trolls," whom they accuse of applying
for patents then claiming infringement strictly for profit, and the
independent inventors and programmers who claim they rely on current patent
laws to make a living. In December, the FCC voted to strip down the
process by which broadband providers gain permission to offer IP service,
which may take some energy out of the telecoms' support for wide-ranging
broadband reform. Verizon has announced that it will focus on state
legislation and FCC rule making, rather than Congress. Net neutrality will
surely be an issue, but Republicans could use the same tactics to stall a
Net-neutrality bill that Democrats used to prevent a broadband bill this
year. An increase in the number of H-1B visas granted will be strongly
pushed by tech companies, as the 2007 cap was reached two months before the
fiscal year even began. Debates over illegal immigration caused such bills
to stall last year, and now it seems that the hiring of H-1B workers for
less than prevailing U.S. wages will cause a push for a complete reform of
the system. The H-1B program was not mentioned by Nancy Pelosi in her
"first 100 hours" plans, and many predict that the new attitude of
controlled spending taken up by Democrats will cause a loss of interest in
the program.
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Voter Paper Trail Not an Easy Path
Atlanta Journal-Constitution (12/22/06) Campos, Carlos
An examination of the much discussed e-voting paper-trail audit system
used in several Georgia districts revealed that the process is far from a
silver bullet. The paper-trail solution gained popularity in the wake of
many warnings from computer scientists that e-voting machines were
vulnerable to tampering. Cobb County, Ga. head of elections Sharon Dunn
recently testified in front of state officials, who are considering making
paper-trials mandatory in all of the state's voting districts, regarding
the effort needed to manually count the 976 printouts generated in the
district: Twenty-eight people took part in the five-day task of counting
the votes from 42 races, and teams often had to restart their counts as
numbers did not match up. Dunn testified, "It looks easy until you have to
do it." Other issues raised included how printouts would be stored,
whether or not they would be considered official ballots, whether
volunteers, often elderly, would be capable of dealing with the technology,
and the likelihood of printer malfunctions. MIT political science
professor specializing in elections Charles Stewart said, "Audits ask
humans to do something that computers are generally better at doing."
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New Research Could Lead to 'Invisible' Electronics
EurekAlert (12/22/06)
Researchers at Northwestern University have produced inexpensive
high-performance transparent transistors that can be configured on both
glass and plastic. Northwestern University professor Tobin J. Marks, who
led the research team, says, "You can imagine a variety of applications for
new electronics that haven't been possible previously--imagine displays of
text or images that would seem to be floating in space." The goal of
displays using electronics that do not have visible wires has long been
sought after, and this development could bring the dream one step closer to
realization. The new thin-film transistors mark the first time
"invisibility" has been achieved without severely sacrificing quality, and
could be combined with current light display technology such as LCDs.
Marks' team combined films composed of indium oxide, an inorganic
semiconductor, with several layers of self-assembling organic molecules
that allow superior insulating abilities. Since the indium oxide can be
fabricated at low temperatures, its production would be rather inexpensive,
while outperforming current silicon transistors, and coming close to the
performance of high-end polysilicon transistors. Marks says prototype
displays could be available in 12 to 18 months.
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Where Real Money Meets Virtual Reality, the Jury Is Still
Out
Washington Post (12/26/06) P. A1; Sipress, Alan
Some vendors have been able to make a living selling virtual goods in
Internet worlds such as Second Life, so the recent debate over the
copyright protection for such products has become a very important to their
livelihood. Software that clones and sells these products under a
different name has even caused a strike of virtual vendors. Courts have
yet to establish uniform standards concerning the protection of such
property. In November, over $20 million in total sales had been counted on
Second Life; receiving a large boost from a ruling by Linden Labs, a Web
site, stating that users own intellectual property rights for what they
create with the site's free tools. The executive director of Congress'
Joint Economic Committee, which is looking into whether transactions in
virtual worlds should be taxed, Christopher Frenze, says, "There seems to
be a lack of ground rules in an area that would have explosive growth in
the next decade or two." A ruling by a California court stated that the
owner of a Web site owns all content, even if it is completely virtual, and
this right trumps another user's ability to sell products acquired in the
virtual environment. However, a Chinese court ruled that users have
property rights over the items they purchase with real money in a virtual
world. A big concern is that those who design and market virtual goods
need explicit ownership over what they create in order to protect the
incentives that fuel economic activity. According to Linden Labs, copying
an item in a virtual world is not considered theft, only infringement, as
creators have ownership of the intellectual property, not the creations
themselves. U.S. Circuit Court Judge Richard A. Posner predicts that an
"international law of virtual worlds" will emerge, not unlike international
maritime law. Many other considerations are sure to be brought up in the
ongoing debate, including whether the owners of physical property have
rights over it when it is displayed in a virtual environment.
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Project to Tag Tokyo Neighborhood With RFID
IDG News Service (12/26/06) Williams, Martyn
Tokyo's most prominent shipping district will be blanketed with
approximately 10,000 RFID tags and other beacons for a trial of
location-based services. The project is the work of the Ubiquitous
Computing Technology Center, led by University of Tokyo professor Ken
Sakamura, and is being instituted in several other locations in Japan.
Prototype readers will recognize the unique signature of each tag and
request its information from a server, using a LAN connection. Users will
be able to access navigation data and information for any business or
location they choose, in English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. Tokyo
Gov. Shintaro Ishihara says, "With this, you can just push a button and
find the where you want to go." The terminal being used has a 3.5-inch
OLED touch panel and several networking interfaces. The trials, supported
by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure and Transport, are to begin on January 21, and will continue
into March. One trial aims to help the blind by placing sensors in the
ground that will alert them, when contacted by the tip of a cane, to an
upcoming flight of stairs, ramp, or other impediment.
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Andrew Tanenbaum: Operating Systems' Mr Reliable
Computerworld Australia (12/27/06) Dahdah, Howard
The inspiration for Linus Torvalds' Linux operating system was the MINIX
OS authored by Vrije Universiteit computer science professor and ACM Fellow
Dr. Andrew Tanenbaum, who is visiting Linux Australia's linux.conf.au to
discuss designing reliable OSes and to introduce the new LF (Lifetime
Failures) metric, which represents how many times the software has crashed
in the user's lifetime. Tanenbaum points to the wide employment of
microkernels "in mission critical industrial and military systems where
failures are intolerable," and he still feels passionately for monolithic
OSes because the need for reliability is prevalent. He contends that most
users desire, more than anything else, reliable, failure-proof operation.
Tanenbaum has not changed his opinion that he would give Torvalds a failing
grade were he a student of his, arguing that what Torvalds should have done
was improve an existing OS instead of "retrogressing to a much earlier
design." Tanenbaum also cites code bloat that makes Windows or Linux
systems slow to boot as another disadvantage. Tanenbaum notes that in the
nearly two decades since MINIX was introduced, it has inspired scores of
students in OS design. "I think that it will yet show that the only way to
make a system truly reliable is to make it small and modular," he says.
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We'll All Be Cyborgs Someday, Scientist Says
Austin American-Statesman (TX) (12/23/06) P. A5; Melvin, Don
University of Reading cybernetics professor Kevin Warwick has already had
two computer chips implanted under his skin, and is excited about future
possibilities for this technology. In 1998, Warwick had an inch-long glass
capsule containing silicon microchips inserted in his arm, which alerted
his computer to his presence, told doors to open for him, and caused lights
to turn on; weeks later it was removed. In 2002, he had another chip
implanted in his wrist and connected to his median nerves that powered a
remote robotic hand. The robotic hand contained sensors that relayed
information to his brain. "It was tremendously exciting," Warwick says.
"I experienced it as signals in my brain, which my brain was quite happy to
recognize as feedback from the robot hand fingertips." Warwick, who is in
charge of the Mobile Autonomous Devices lab at the University of Reading,
has the ultimate goal of implanting a chip in his brain. "I want to be a
cyborg," he notes. "I can see the advantages." Such an advancement could
help people who have been paralyzed regain movement, but Warwick points out
the possibility of "literally the first brain-to-brain communication."
Skeptics worry that such technology could be used by a government to keep
track of its citizens, but Warwick says his goal is to simply show that the
technology exists and demonstrate its possibilities, including enhanced
memory and increased analysis and comparison abilities.
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GAO: Federal IT Worker Exchange Draws Little
Interest
Computerworld (12/20/06) Thibodeau, Patrick
The Information Technology Exchange Program has been slow to catch on with
federal agencies and the private sector. So far, there has been no
exchange of IT workers between the federal government and private
companies, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is the only federal
agency that has approved an exchange, according to a new report from the
Government Accountability Office. Congress implemented the exchange
program in 2002 with hopes of bringing the IT skillset of the federal
government up to date. The GAO says the exchange program suffers because
private companies do not want to lose access to high-demand skills for
three months to a year. "Employees with desired skills are in short supply
in both the federal government and the private sector, particularly in
enterprise architecture, project management, and information security,"
says the report. Though private employers also express concern about
federal ethics rules on financial disclosure, the GAO adds that better
marketing would help the exchange program. The program will end next
December unless Congress extends it.
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New Chicago-Indiana Computer Network Prepared to Handle
Massive Data Flow From World's Largest Scientific Experiment
University of Chicago (12/21/06)
The MidWest Tier 2 Center, a computer center operated jointly by the
University of Chicago and the University of Indiana, is currently
performing test calculations to prepare it to receive data from the world's
largest scientific experiment. The Large Hadron Collider at the CERN
European particle physics lab in Geneva, Switzerland, will collide beams of
protons, producing interactions that will be studied by the global
computing grid of which the Tier 2 Center is a part, in hopes of finding
the Higgs boson, the theoretical particle that gives mass to all objects in
the universe, and asymmetric particles, which may lead to the discovery of
additional dimensions. "Understanding what's interesting and useful to
record from those interactions is quite a challenge, because there is far
more information than one is able to record for leisurely analysis," said
James Pilcher, a Professor in Physics at the University of Chicago.
Frederick Luehring, a Senior Research Scientist at Indiana University,
adds, "Even once the data is recorded, it will take years of careful
sifting and sorting, which will require massive amounts of computing power
to extract the final scientific results." Centers such as MidWest Tier 2
prove that the systems upon which the data from experiments is analyzed
have become just as important to scientific discovery as the experimental
devices themselves. Luehring added, "We have deliberately designed a
tiered structure of computing resources spread throughout much of the
world. All of these sites interconnect with each other using
grid-computing techniques. In addition, grid computing allows us to use
other computing resources that are not fully dedicated to ATLAS or
high-energy physics."
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Tech's Finest Minds Bet on Genetic ID Cards, Rule Out
Space Elevators
Extreme Tech (12/21/06) Gardiner, Bryan
IEEE Spectrum Magazine and the Institute for the Future (IFTF) conducted a
survey focusing on how the next five decades may pan out in terms of major
technology and science trends. Innovations "highly unlikely" to emerge in
the next 50 years include space elevators, commercial quantum computers,
and robot nurses. More probable milestones, according to a summary of the
survey by IFTF research affiliate David Pescovitz and co-author Marina
Gorbis, were an explosion in computing power and network connectivity; the
incorporation of smart sensors into everyday objects, forming a new sensory
infrastructure; the integration of bio-systems and micro-electromechanical
systems via nanotechnology; the replacement of centralized infrastructures
by lightweight, modular, and scalable grids; and the augmentation of
existing life forms and the generation of new ones through the application
of genetic engineering and bioinformatics. IEEE fellows forecast the
continued use of distributed computing for advanced mathematics such as
deep data mining and "combinatorics." One fellow said interactive computer
graphics will advance to the point where real and virtual images will be
hard to tell apart within 10 years, and Pescovitz and Gorbis projected that
this advance will facilitate complex simulations that will "let [people]
see, hear, and even feel inputs and outputs." Near-flawless handwriting
recognition, automatic language processing in real time, and unstructured
speech recognition were expected to be within the capabilities of
sophisticated algorithms. Personal genetic profiles that people can carry
around and insect-sized swarming microbots that can perform search and
rescue missions were also foreseen by the IEEE fellows.
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$100 Laptop Marches on the Developing World
VNUNet (12/21/06) Sanders, Tom
Questions about the educational benefits of the One Laptop Per Child
(OLPC) project will begin to grow now that several hundred test units have
been distributed around the world. OLPC plans to ship anywhere from 5
million to 10 million of its low-cost computers in 2007, and observers will
be closely watching the effort to see whether the units can help provide a
spark that ultimately will allow children in developing countries to change
their economic conditions. There are concerns that the children will never
learn how to adequately use the OLPC devices, that their teachers will not
be able to provide much training assistance, and that their parents may
attempt to sell the units for needed cash. The OLPC units cost about $140
to $150 each, and could sell for as little as $50 by 2010. A notebook
computer, the OLPC unit has a dual-mode screen that enables it to be
operated in direct sunlight and in the dark, a yo-yo-like power generator
for recharging its battery, and the ability to use a Wi-Fi mesh network for
Internet access. The Linux-based machine has a 366 MHz processor, 128 MB
of RAM, and 512 MB of Flash memory storage. Other interests in the IT
industry have similar ideas, including Microsoft as well as Intel, which is
marketing the $400 Eduwise notebook computer for developing areas.
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PHP Security Under Scrutiny
Security Focus (12/18/06) Lemos, Robert
Web applications written using PHP tools have proven to be difficult to
protect. Nearly 20 million domains and 1.3 million IP addresses that host
Web sites now use PHP, according to Netcraft's October 2006 survey.
However, a search of the National Vulnerability Database, which is
maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, recently
revealed that Web applications written in PHP likely made up 43 percent of
this year's security problems, an increase from last year's 29 percent.
NIST senior computer scientist Peter Mell, the program manager for the
vulnerability database, says that although PHP's security issues are partly
due to the language itself, many are due to how developers implement the
language. Nevertheless, he says, "In the dynamic programming language
(and) scripting realm, we certainly have a problem. Any time a third or
more of the vulnerabilities in a given year are attributed to a single
language, you know you have a problem." Security researchers say hackers
are increasingly focusing on the vulnerabilities in Web applications;
researcher Steven Christey says database injection bugs, PHP
vulnerabilities, and cross-site scripting flaws, all Web application flaws,
were the three most common flaws in the first nine months of 2006. The PHP
Group says it has worked to accommodate less-savvy developers by making the
language more foolproof. PHP Group Zeev Suraski says, "We have shown in
the past that we are willing to change defaults and sometimes to remove
features, just to make it more difficult for developers to make security
mistakes." Still, Mell says writing secure code is challenging, even for
professionals, and needs to be made "dummy proof." He says, "I think it is
tough for the general public to write secure dynamic Web applications."
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German Government Approves $1.6 Billion to Spur IT
Innovation
IDG News Service (12/19/06) Blau, John
At Germany's inaugural IT summit on Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel
called on government, business, and universities to increase cooperation in
order to help Germany become a world leader in IT, and announced that $1.6
billion would be given out in grants over three years to aid the IT sector.
Over half of the innovations made in the automobile sector are in
software, so Merkel recommended that communication and telecommunication
firms build a better relationship with such industrial giants, with a focus
on software engineering. The decrease in German technological innovation
in recent years can be partially attributed to high labor costs that have
deterred investment in technology and falling standards at universities.
Germany is also seeking immigration policies that will attract research
talent, and grants that will give those who come to Germany incentive to
stay.
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Enhancing Quality of Life--and Saving Billions
Carnegie Mellon Today (12/06) Vol. 3, No. 3, Spice, Byron
Of the 300 million people expected to comprise the U.S. population by
2030, over 20 percent will be 65 or older while 75 million will have some
type of disability, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Carnegie Mellon
University and the University of Pittsburgh have jointly set up the Quality
of Life Technology Engineering Research Center (QoLTERC) for the purpose of
addressing such issues, using a five-year, $15 million National Science
Foundation grant. QoLTERC's researchers will concentrate on the
application of technology, especially information technology, to give
seniors and the disabled more freedom and independence. "We envision a
future of compassionate, intelligent home systems--individual devices that
you can carry, or technologies embedded in the environment that monitor and
communicate with people," notes U.A. and Helen Whitaker University
professor of computer science and robotics Takeo Kanade, who will co-direct
the center with Rory Cooper of Pitt's School of Health and Rehabilitation
Sciences. These systems will be able to track the health and activities of
people living alone, serve as memory aids, run household appliances, and
enhance wheelchairs and other existing assistive technologies. "If the
technology we develop can ensure that people remain in their homes instead
of in assisted living or nursing home facilities for just one month longer,
we can save our nation $1.2 billion annually," Kanade reckons.
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Europe Earmarks $11 Million for Advanced Multimedia
Search Platform Research
InformationWeek (12/21/06) Gardner, W. David
Search technologies developer Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) will oversee a
European project to develop a new audiovisual search platform that will
involve a number of academic research institutions and corporations.
Project participants will spend 36 months developing the Platform for
Search of Audiovisual Resources Across Online Spaces (PHAROS) for
processing and managing audiovisual material. The decision to pursue the
advanced audiovisual search platform comes at a time when a surge in the
volume of audiovisual material has made searching more problematic. The
project plans to give users the ability to prioritize information, and to
even "have the option to interact in a data-driven way to identify the
right information even when they are not sure what they are seeking," FAST
chief technology officer Bjorn Olstad said in an email. Companies will be
able to use PHAROS to develop next-generation business-to-consumer and
business-to-business audiovisual applications. Also, all kinds of devices
would be able to take advantage of PHAROS, including mobile devices. The
European Commission is providing $11.2 million to fund the project.
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Robotic Baby Seal Wins Top Award
BBC News (12/22/06)
The Japanese government has honored researchers at the National Institute
of Advanced Industrial Science with its top Robot Award 2006. The
institute is behind Paro, a furry robotic seal that is used to assist
people in care homes with their therapy sessions. Paro, which won the
service award, makes use of tactile sensors on its body to enable the robot
to respond to touch, and is able to respond when its name is called as well
as coo like a real seal. The government also recognized My Spoon, a
joystick-controlled feeding robot that carries out preprogrammed movements,
which has hit the market in Japan and Europe. A large, autonomous robot
that vacuum cleans Tokyo offices at night also received an award. Japan
introduced the award program this year as a way to encourage more robotics
research and development.
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Group Formed to Address Future of Libraries in Internet
Age
National Journal's Technology Daily (12/20/06) Sternstein, Aliya
An advisory group on digital bibliographic control has been organized by
the Library of Congress, academia, and the Web search industry; the group
will concentrate on digital-age information cataloging over the next year,
according to dean of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's
School of Information and Library Science Jose-Marie Griffiths. Among the
working group's members are representatives from Google, Ask.com,
Microsoft, the Online Computer Library Center, and other information
science groups. Griffiths said people need help negotiating the morass of
cyberspace, which is tangled with online content. "We're talking about
providing structure so that people can find what they want to find and know
that it is valid and authentic," she explained. Griffiths believes
bibliographic control concepts can be raised to the digital level, although
opinions differ on how to accomplish this. The next convention of the
working group will be in March 2007, and the group plans to make
recommendations to the Library of Congress in late summer. The continued
existence of libraries is critical, according to Library of Congress
officials; associate librarian for Library Services Deanna Marcum noted
that the public library is becoming "the one neutral place where community
members can meet and discuss all kinds of topics and kids can find Internet
access readily." Director of the University of Chicago library and
Association of Research Libraries member Judith Nadler reported that
indexing the Internet will require substantial financial investment, which
will be a major challenge. Copyright law could be another stumbling block,
especially in view of Google's efforts to scan excerpts from every book in
public and university libraries, including copyrighted works.
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