NewsScan Daily, 12 December 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 12 December 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
       First Indictments Under Virginia Anti-Spam Law
       Technology for the World: 'Show Us the Money'
       An Ounce of Flesh as Price of 'Getting Some Rage Out'
       Skull Phones
       A Biotech Future

FEATURES
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: Roberto Clemente
       Safe & Sound in the Cyber Age: Spam Dancing

FIRST INDICTMENTS UNDER VIRGINIA ANTI-SPAM LAW
The state of Virginia has lodged criminal indictments against two people
charged with making unsolicited mass e-mailings; it's the first case to be
brought under a new antispam law in that state. Prosecutors say that in a
one-month period last summer more than 100,000 AOL subscribers clicked a
"report spam" button to complain about messages sent by the two defendants.
The e-mail messages, sent with fake return addresses, contained information
about stock-picking methods, mortgages and "Internet history eraser"
software for deleting evidence that a user had visited pornographic sites.
(New York Times 12 Dec 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/12/12/technology/12spam.html

TECHNOLOGY FOR THE WORLD: 'SHOW US THE MONEY'
Delegates to a three-day U.N. summit on the Information Society want to get
the Internet, telephones and other communications to at least half the
world's inhabitants by 2015, but one skeptical Kenyan aid worker says,
"There have been many initiatives, summits, declarations, very many
commitments on text that have yet to be actualized. They need to put down
money." One conference organizer estimates that it will take more than $6
billion to extend phones and the Internet to all corners of the world. A
U.S. aid agency, the Overseas Private Investment Corp., pledged $400 million
in loans and loan guarantees for U.S. companies that invest overseas in
yet-to-be-determined digital divide projects. The European Union has
indicates it will give additional funds, but isn't ready to commit or to say
how much. (AP/Washington Post 11 Dec 2003)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57328-2003Dec11.html

AN 'OUNCE OF FLESH' AS PRICE OF 'GETTING SOME RAGE OUT'
Californian Charles Booher faces the prospect of as many as five years in
prison if convicted of federal charges that he threatened to kill or harm
employees of a company he said was bombarding him with spam. Shortly after
his arrest, Booher explained: "I felt like I was just getting some rage
out." Now he says: "If the government wants its ounce of flesh out of me, I
suppose I'll have to give them an ounce of flesh." He'll return to court
late next month. (AP/San Jose Mercury News 12 Dec 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/7474945.htm

SKULL PHONES
Two Japanese cell phone companies are making handsets that send vibrations
through the human skull to relay sound. One is the Sanyo TS41, which works
as a regular cell phone when the folding handset is opened, but can also be
placed next to the user's face, allowing tiny vibrations from the phone to
travel through bones in the face to the ear. Another new handset of this
kind comes from NTT DoCoMo, which takes the form of a wristband with a
microphone and earphone in it. Vibrations sent to the ear are converted by
the brain into sound. (AP/USA Today 12 Dec 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2003-12-12-sanyo-vibephone
_x.htm

A BIOTECH FUTURE
Merchant banker G. Steven Burrill predicts that 2004 will rank among the
biggest ever for biotech IPOs, and that drug development partnerships
between small biotechs and established drug firms will be a key source of
financing (thereby  allowing big drug companies to stock their product
development pipelines more cheaply and efficiently than by company
acquisitions). Burrill says, "They won't buy a company, because they don't
need to." (AP/Los Angeles Times 12 Dec 2003)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-biotech12dec12,1,7490704.story?coll=
la-headlines-technology

*****

FLASH CARD
     "Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to
death." (Harold Wilson)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: ROBERTO CLEMENTE
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the star baseball player Roberto Walker
Clemente (1934-1972), whose career was tragically cut short in the crash of
the airplane that was flying him with relief supplies for the survivors of
an earthquake in Nicaragua.
     In an 18-year career (1955-72) with the National League's Pittsburgh
Pirates, Clemente became one of baseball's greatest right fielders. He won
four National League batting titles (1961, 1964, 1965, 1966) while compiling
a .317 lifetime average, precisely 3,000 hits, and 1,305 runs batted in. He
was the league's Most Valuable Player in 1966 and was selected to the
All-Star team 12 times. He also won 12 Gold Glove awards for his premier
performance in right field, where he thrilled fans with his powerful
throwing arm. The tragedy of his early death triggered an unprecedented
special vote to elect him to the Baseball Hall of Fame in an unprecedented
special vote.
     Born in a Puerto Rico barrio, Roberto Clemente was the youngest of
seven children. By age 17, he was playing on a Puerto Rican Winter League,
displaying the type of hitting, fielding and throwing skills that quickly
brought him to the attention of big-league scouts. Signed by the Pittsburgh
Pirates, he enjoyed a solid rookie season in 1955, and in succeeding seasons
his stellar, consistent play made him one of the top players in the National
League.
     Great as he was on the field, Clemente became even greater off the
field in 1972 when on his own initiative he set out on a relief mission to
earthquake-torn Nicaragua. With four other volunteers Clemente personally
loaded a DC-7 with food and other supplies and took off only to plunge into
the Caribbean Sea. There were no survivors and Clemente's body was never
recovered. The tragedy shocked the nation, and the Baseball's Writer
Association of America immediately waived the customary five-year wait and
voted Clemente into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, making him the first
Latino to be inducted
 
See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0152634207/newsscancom/ref=nosim
for a biography of Clemente, or look for it in your favorite library. (We
donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy
programs.)

SAFE & SOUND IN THE CYBER AGE: SPAM DANCING
              [by Chey and Stephen Cobb]
     Spam dancing? We figured this was a better title for a column about the
CAN-SPAM Act than "Can CAN-SPAM Can Spam," and all the other predictable
puns that journalists have employed during the bill's lengthy evolution. We
also wanted to be festive, because as we enter the 'feast-ive' season, you
can bet that makers of weight-loss products are polishing up their
post-holiday pitches, and that includes spammers. There will undoubtedly be
a New Year's barrage of email touting miracle diet pills, despite CAN SPAM,
or maybe, as some predict, because of it.
     To be honest, about the only thing we can say for certain right now
about the CAN SPAM act is that President Bush will sign it. What the bill
will do to spam is not clear, it might even increase the volume of email
that some people consider to be spam. But we can say for sure that spammers
have not been fazed by any of the recent laws, lawsuits, convictions, and
fines directed at them. Most spam is deceptive. A lot of it is already
illegal according to many existing state and federal laws pre-dating CAN
SPAM. So we're not talking about a group of people who hold the law in high
regard.
     Indeed, a few days ago a reporter called with an interesting question:
Do you feel that the criminalization of spam will increase organized crime's
involvement with spam, spyware, malicious code, and such like? Stephen¹s
response was that folks who work together to send spam that violates the law
are, by definition, 'organized crime.' For example, several years ago the
Arizona Attorney General busted a well-organized group of people that was
using spam to sell bogus penis enlargement pills. These folks had
accumulated the kind of cash, jewelry, luxury cars and houses that most
people associate with organized crime. (Maybe we¹re in the wrong business!!)
     Of course, Stephen's response about organized crime was a slightly
facetious answer. Whether or not the people that one normally thinks of as
organized crime are adding spam and other unpleasant Internet activities to
their portfolio of activities is not clear at this point, but we can say it
would make perfect sense for them to consider doing so. Why? Because
spamming remains, despite all the anti-spam laws and lawsuits, a relatively
low-risk activity, with plenty of upsides in terms of profit.
     The one thing that all of the anti-spam laws, including CAN SPAM, will
fail to accomplish, is the necessary changes to email technology to enable
enforcement of an anti-spam law. Prosecuting spammers is hard to accomplish
because spammers are hard to find. One reason they are hard to find is that
current email protocols require no authentication of sender identity.
Spammers can pretend to send email pretending that you mailed the spam, and
it is hard to prove that you didn¹t. Email programs and protocols also make
it very simple to send out an email with a completely fictitious return
email address. If you can't prove the identity of an email address, how the
heck are you going to prosecute the senders? And, would the enforcement of
such legislation require that the government create an entirely new agency
whose sole purpose is to track down spam and stop it? Imagine the
bureaucracy!
     The month-on-month growth rate for spam is currently anywhere from 9
percent to 33 percent, as reported by people who measure this stuff for a
living. Lower percentages tend to be reported by enterprise networks (this
is spam sent to company email addresses, like [email protected]).
Higher numbers are seen by Internet Service Providers (ISPs such as AOL,
Earthlink, etc.). The average of the numbers of spam messages for the entire
Internet is probably somewhere in the middle, but you don't have to be a
genius at math to figure that even 9 percent, compounded monthly, means the
number you started with has pretty much doubled within 8 months.
     Track this on a chart and there is nary hint of a blip when a spammer
is arrested, charged, fined. That's because the rest of them feel fairly
sure they will not get caught, or prosecuted. While CAN-SPAM is raising
hopes, look over a few days' worth of your recent spam and you will probably
see adverts for diet pills that are actually legal emails under CAN-SPAM¹'s
definition of spam, even though you didn't want them. And, by the time
anyone gets round to investigating whether or not they are illegal, the
sender will be using a different company name, address, server, and so on.
We'd love to be able to wish you a happy and spam-free New Year, but for now
we'll have to settle for happy.
     [Chey Cobb, CISSP, is an independent consultant (www.cheycobb.com) and
a former senior technical security advisor to the NRO. She can be emailed as
chey at patriot dot net. Stephen Cobb, CISSP, helped develop SpamSquelcher,
a network perimeter security service (www.SpamSquelcher.com) and can be
emailed as scobb at eprivacygroup dot com.]


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