NewsScan Daily, 26 September 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 26 September 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
       Microsoft Lauded for Cracking Down on Chat Rooms
       New California Legislation Friendly to Entertainment Industry
       Critic of Microsoft Security Loses Job
       Termination of Information Awareness Office
       Corporate Messaging: Approach With Caution

FEATURES
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: James Hutton
       Mailbag: The World As We Find It

MICROSOFT LAUDED FOR CRACKING DOWN ON CHAT ROOMS
Child advocates are applauding a decision by Microsoft's MSN online service
to crack down on its free chat rooms. Ernie Allen of the National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children says: "There is no question but that chat rooms
generally tend to be very dangerous places for children." MSN's move is
intended to force users to identify themselves, so that they can be held
accountable for their actions, and so that MSN can contact them when it gets
complaints. Of course, ending support for free foreign chat rooms will also
help Microsoft reduce MSN's financial loss. Technology analyst Rob Helm
explains: "Maintaining any kind of online service is expensive. Putting chat
on paid status in the U.S, and turning it off elsewhere is a step toward
making MSN profitable." However, Microsoft spokesman Lisa Gurry says that
cost savings were "not a factor" in the Microsoft chat-room decision. "This
really is all about looking at delivering the safest online experience for
folks using our services." (USA Today 24 Sep 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2003-09-24-chat_x.htm

NEW CALIFORNIA LEGISLATION FRIENDLY TO ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY
California Gov. Gray Davis says he will sign new legislation that is
friendly to the entertainment industry and aimed at stopping the theft of
film and music. Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA), is pleased with the legislation: "The piracy
problem is severe and we're seeing it in terms of layoffs. We are really
grateful for anything that can be done to deal with this problem...
Thousands of people in the recording industry have lost their jobs, artists
are having trouble being signed ... retailers are going out of business."
(AP/San Jose Mercury News 26 Sep 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6863045.htm

CRITIC OF MICOSOFT SECURITY LOSES JOB
Daniel E. Geer Jr., the chief technology officer for AtStake -- a Cambridge,
Mass., technology firm that works closely with Microsoft -- lost his job
after participating on a study that disparages security gaps in Microsoft
software. Microsoft-watchers see the firing as an example of Microsoft's
ability to silence its critics. Ed Black, head of the Computer and
Communications Industry Association (sponsor of the report in question)
says: "It's a tragedy this happened to someone who was speaking in the
interest of national security. It gives even more credibility to what he
said and what the report said. He was not in any way representing some
corporate interests of his company." A statement by AtStake says simply:
"The values and opinions of the report are not in line with AtStake's
views." (AP/USA Today 26 Sep 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/digest.htm

TERMINATION OF INFORMATION AWARENESS OFFICE
The Pentagon's controversial Information Awareness Office, which had been
headed by Admiral. John M. Poindexter, has been closed down by Congress,
though a few of its projects will be shifted elsewhere within the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Senator Ron Wyden (D, OR) says:
"They turned the lights out on the programs Poindexter conceived. From a
standpoint of civil liberties, this is a huge victory." Wyden says the
programs that survived are mainly training initiatives, such as war-gaming
software that help agencies analyze evidence and communicate with one
another. (New York Times 26 Sep 2003)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/26/politics/26SURV.html

CORPORATE MESSAGING: APPROACH WITH CAUTION
Ferris Research, a firm that tracks enterprise messaging, says that most big
companies are running messaging software one or more major revisions behind
the maker's most current version. David Via, a Ferris analyst, explains that
the  No. 1 reason companies have for procrastination is their belief that
"if it ain't broke don't fix it" -- a belief reinforced by the general
nature of constrained information technology budgets. Of course, there are
other barriers to software upgrades: money and fear. Via says: "If you
walked into a company and told them that the upgrade was free, they'd say
'absolutely, let's upgrade.' But of course, it's not free nor cheap." He
goes on to explain:  "Few users want to be on the bleeding edge."
(Information week 25 Sep 2003)
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=15200402

*****

FLASH CARD
     "It is astonishing what you can do when you have a lot of energy,
ambition and plenty of ignorance." (Alfred P. Sloan Jr.)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: JAMES HUTTON
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Scottish geologist James Hutton
(1726-1797), who is considered the "father of geology" because his theories
on the deposition of sedimentary rocks, the intrusion of igneous rocks, the
gradual action of geomorphic processes, and the length of geologic time
provided the groundwork for modern geology.
     Before Hutton's Earth studies it was generally accepted that the Earth
had been shaped by catastrophic forces, and that all of the rocks visible at
the surface had been deposited by a great flood that took place in the
recent past. Hutton described a variety of geologic situations that
contradicted this Catastrophist view. He suggested instead that the ordinary
observable processes of erosion and sedimentation, operating over vast
periods of time, were sufficient to account for the Earth's history.
     When Hutton first presented his ideas in 1788 and later published them
in his 1795 book, "Theory of the Earth," they were largely ignored, but by
the middle of the 19th century the scientific community had become convinced
that Hutton's Uniformitarianist view was correct. This acceptance was helped
by the 1802 revision of Hutton's somewhat abstruse writing undertaken by his
close friend John Playfair, who wrote a more readable condensation of his
work.
     Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Hutton was the son of a merchant and city
officeholder, who died when Hutton was only three years old. Educated in the
local grammar school and at the University of Edinburgh, he put aside his
early interest in chemistry to become a lawyer's apprentice, where he spent
more time amusing his fellow clerks with chemical experiments than copying
legal documents. Before the year was out, he left his law apprenticeship to
study medicine, as the field most closely related to chemistry.
     In 1749 he obtained his medical degree at Leiden, Holland, but he did
not go into practice. Instead he joined with some associates to develop a
financially rewarding method for manufacturing sal ammoniac. He then took up
farming in Berwickshire, England. Both the farm and the sal ammoniac company
prospered, enabling him in 1768 to give up farming and resettle himself in
Edinburgh, where he could pursue his scientific interests. He devoted his
time to extensive scientific reading and traveled widely to inspect rocks
and observe the actions of natural processes.
     By the late 18th century, much knowledge had been gained about rocks,
strata, and fossils, but not synthesized into a workable general theory of
geology. Such a task was seriously impeded by the still-accepted belief that
the Earth had been created only about 6,000 years ago, according to the
narrative in the biblical book of Genesis. Hutton claimed that the totality
of geologic processes could fully explain the current landforms all over the
world, and no biblical explanations were necessary. He stated that the
processes of erosion, deposition, sedimentation, and upthrusting were
cyclical and must have been repeated many times in the Earth's history.
Given the enormous spans of time taken by such cycles, Hutton asserted that
the age of the Earth must be inconceivably great.

See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/073820692X/newsscancom/ref=nosim
for Jack Repchek's "The Man Who Found Time: James Hutton and the Discovery
of Earth's Antiquity" -- or look for it in your favorite library. (We donate
all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy programs.)

MAILBAG: THE WORLD AS WE FIND IT

SPAM SOLUTION THAT IS SIMPLE, INEXPENSIVE AND ROBUST
The solution to spam goes like this;
      All major ISPs will become part of an association of ISP¹s that
registers and monitors ISP conformance to the association requirements. To
be a member of this associated list, an ISP must do two things.
     1. The ISP must authenticate and verify each and every email message
originating from its clients. The technology already exists to permit an ISP
to ensure that you are who you say you are before the ISP will accept an
email from you and send the message onward. ISPs must use this technology to
authenticate each and every client email message.
     2.  The ISP must require that all mass email generator clients register
with the ISP, and further require the client to abide by the association of
ISP¹s regulations for mass emailing.
     Any ISP that fails to perform these two actions will not be permitted
to list with the association of ISPs. Your ISP will reject any incoming
email from a non-registered sender.
     What does this do?
     1. It ensures that each and every email you receive comes from an
authenticated sender.
     2. It limits incoming traffic only to conforming ISPs, thus eliminating
email from rogue ISPs that would encourage or permit illicit email spam
generators. 
     3. It allows the email community to remove noncompliant ISPs from the
ISP association list, thereby isolating them from the email community.
     4. It ensures that, when you do receive spam email, you can return a
³send me no more² message with reasonable assurance that your wishes will be
respected in both letter and spirit.
    5. It gives you recourse if a spammer does not comply to the spirit of
your request to stop sending you email, because that spammer is registered
with its ISP, and is therefore accessible to the ISP association.
     This solution is simple, inexpensive, and robust. It does require a
critical mass of ISPs, which I suspect would not be a problem as soon as the
likes of AOL adopt this protocol.  What I don¹t understand is why it, or a
similar technology based solution, has not been implemented long before now.
(Alex McPhail)

ABBA DABBA DABBA SAID CODER TO THE CHIMP
Now just you wait one minute there young fella! They may not be doing the
design yet, but they are checking out the code! This "accomplished
student of primate life" surely needs to check out
http://www.newtechusa.com/PPI/main.asp and  especially their visit to
Burning Man and their part in the Blackout of 2003!  ;-) (Gerry Visel)

THE DETAILS OF OUR LIVES

I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable about the dangers massive
databases pose to our personal privacy and the havoc they can cause. I am
not naive about what some of the people in our government are doing in the
name of security to undermine our freedom to move about, live our lives in
peace and be ourselves. But even I felt a chill reading your Sept 24
edition. First you report that the "Terrorism Information Awareness" project
rejected by Congress is being funded under the radar by state and federal
groups, with the data under the control of a private company. Then Chey and
Stephen Cobb outline the administration's effort to develop Enemies Lists by
cross matching massive databases, such as Acxiom's seven acres of computers
watching 700 million people and companies! (I loved their comment that mass
media is now "an irony-free zone." Perhaps they should add that as far as
rational thinking goes, there's a "Zero Tolerance" policy in effect?)
     I shudder to think what kind of world today's children will inherit
from us. I can only hope that before it's too late Congress will wake up and
recognize that our right to own and control the details of our lives is as
deserving of legal protection as the rights of record companies to own
music. (Alan Sarhan)

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