NewsScan Daily, 22 May 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 22 May 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Ex-Student Fined More Than $500,000 for Stock Fraud on Net
        The Need for International Cooperation to Fight Spam
        Study Shows Spam Pays
        Berners-Lee Says New Policy Will Keep the Web Free
        Dot-Com Bust Has Affected Computer Science Programs
        Women Dominate Text Messaging in UK

FEATURES
      Flash Card
      Honorary Subscriber: Camillo Benso, Conte di Cavour

EX-STUDENT FINED MORE THAN $500,000 FOR STOCK FRAUD ON NET
Former UCLA student Refael Shaoulian has been ordered by a federal judge to 
pay $534,000 in fines for using university computers and false identities 
to post intentionally incorrect about stocks so that he could profit from 
the buying and selling sprees he caused. The civil suit was brought by the 
Securities and Exchange Commission. (APOnline/USA Today 22 May 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/2003-05-21-bruin-amuck_x.htm

THE NEED FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION TO FIGHT SPAM
The president of Brightmail (a company that helps Internet providers block 
spam) predicts that by the end of this year half of all e-mail will be spam 
messages, and says that spam costs U.S. businesses $10 billion a year in 
lost productivity. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has called for 
international organizations to join the anti-spam effort, and Sen. Charles 
Schumer (D,NY) says: "As soon as we tighten up our laws here and institute 
vigorous enforcement, those who want to violate our laws move abroad. A 
global agreement will ensure that anti-spam standards protecting American 
computers are enforceable both here and abroad." (AP/San Jose Mercury News 
22 May 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5920220.htm

STUDY SHOWS SPAM PAYS
While the battle against spam intensifies, the Direct Marketing Association 
has just released figures showing that commercial e-mail advertisements 
generated more than $7 billion in sales last year. The DMA's study is 
intended to bolster its claim that commercial e-mail plays a significant 
role in the U.S. economy. According to the report, about 36% of e-mail 
users, or 21% of all adult Americans, have purchased a product or service 
as the result of receiving commercial e-mail over the past year, with 
purchases valued at an average of $168. About 9% of these e-mail users said 
they made their purchases as the result of unsolicited commercial e-mail. 
(Wall Street Journal 22 May 2003)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105358168385262900.djm,00.html (sub req'd)

BERNERS-LEE SAYS NEW POLICY WILL KEEP THE WEB FREE
Touting the recently announced W3C Patent Policy, Web creator Tim 
Berners-Lee told participants at the 12th International World Wide Web 
Conference that in order for the Web to flourish, it must remain open, 
nonproprietary, innovative, free and inclusive. The W3C Patent Policy, 
which is aimed at reducing the threat of patents blocking future Web 
infrastructure developments, is designed to discourage revenue-generating 
strategies that "work by forcing standards-compliant applications to pay 
licensing fees… While the policy necessarily involved choices that could be 
perceived as threatening certain business models, I believe that this 
policy is the right one, from a revenue perspective, for all who seek to 
contribute to the development of the Web and who ultimately seek to profit 
from its growth. However, it does not preclude licensing activity for all 
technologies on the Web. Indeed, by supporting the continued growth of the 
underlying Web infrastructure and by growing the overall market for the 
Web, this policy increases the opportunity for financial gain (including 
patent licenses) on applications that depend upon the Web." (Wired.com 22 
May 2003)
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,58942,00.html

DOT-COM BUST HAS AFFECTED COMPUTER SCIENCE PROGRAMS
One MIT administrator explains the falling enrollment in computer-related 
academic programs this way: "They overreacted to the boom, so why shouldn’t 
they overreact to the bust? Computer science enrollments are down just 
about everywhere since 2001. Some examples: Carnegie Mellon (CS enrollment 
down 36%), Virginia Tech (CS applications down 40%), MIT (number of 
freshmen declaring computer-related programs as their major down 20%). At 
the University of Texas, J. Strother Moore, the chairman of the computer 
sciences program, says: "Our department will be hurt. But more importantly, 
when the economy recovers, we’re going to need computer programmers, and 
many more of them than we’ll be producing at the current rate of input. 
It’s a serious problem for the national economy." (New York Times 22 May 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/05/22/technology/circuits/22comp.html

WOMEN DOMINATE TEXT MESSAGING IN UK
A survey by the Mobile Data Association found that a full 74% of female 
respondents said they'd used text messaging in the last two minutes, 
compared with 26% of males, and about half the women said they'd prefer 
receiving a sentimental text message to a card on special occasions. 
Two-thirds of the women described themselves as test-messaging competent, 
compared with only a third of the men. Text messaging the UK reached an 
all-time high in March, when 1.7 billion messages were sent. (BBC News 20 
May 2003)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3041209.stm

*****

FLASH CARD
      "We have a natural opportunity to investigate the connections of a 
problem when looking back at its solution." (George Polyá)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: CAMILLO BENSO, CONTE DI CAVOUR
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Piedmontese statesman Camillo 
Benso, Conte di Cavour (1810-1861), who was largely responsible for 
unifying Italy under the House of Savoy, with Victor Emmanuel II as king 
and himself as prime minister of the new kingdom of Italy.
      Born in Turin, the son of a prominent family, Cavour attended the 
Military Academy of Turin, receiving the training that later qualified him 
for a commission in the corps of engineers. In 1824 he became a page to 
Prince Charles Albert of Sardinia-Piedmont, but two years later because of 
his liberal tendencies he was banished from the conservative Turin court 
and prevented from taking part in official political life for almost two 
decades. In 1830 he went to Genoa as a military engineer, where he became 
involved in radical politics. He visited England and France before 
returning home in 1835 to become a financier and industrialist. In 1847 he 
founded the liberal newspaper, Il Risorgimento, and in 1848 he was elected 
to parliament. Two years later he was made minister of agriculture, 
industry, and commerce, and then in 1852 named premier by the new king of 
Sardinia-Piedmont, Victor Emmanuel II.
      Cavour worked diligently to modernize Sardinia-Piedmont, and through 
a series of treaties with France, Belgium, and England, he formed a network 
of economic interests that paved the way for favorable political alliances. 
In 1859 he won the support of Napoleon III of France for the liberation of 
northern Italy by a joint war against Austria. In his efforts to unify 
Italy, Cavour steered a middle course between the revolutionaries who 
wished to terrorize the ruling establishment and the reactionaries who 
blindly opposed any progressive change. That made him a frequent target of 
attack by both factions.
      In the drive for Italian unification the daring diplomacy of Cavour 
was matched by the military exploits of the revolutionary hero, Garibaldi. 
A potential final impasse between the two was averted when Cavour sent an 
army under Victor Emmanuel across Marche and Umbria in order to take 
possession of the Papal States, thereby removing the last obstacle to the 
unification of Italy. Convinced that only Rome could be the capital of the 
new state; Cavour faced the most complex problem of his life -- deciding on 
the position to be assigned to the pope, Pius IX, who had voluntarily 
imprisoned himself in the Vatican. Cavour's proposal was for "a free church 
in a free state," but he fell seriously ill and died before any action 
could be taken. The status of the pope and the confiscated Papal States 
remained unresolved until the Lateran Treaty concluded under Benito 
Mussolini in 1929.

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1410202615/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for "The Life and Times of Cavour" by William Roscoe Thayer -- or look for 
it in your favorite library. [We donate all revenues from our book 
recommendations to adult literacy programs.]

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