NewsScan Daily, 27 February 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 27 February 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
       Justice Blocks Oracle Takeover of PeopleSoft
       VeriSign Sues ICANN
       Virtual War Games
       Putting an End to Spoofing
       Child Porn Raids in Ten Countries

FEATURES
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: Lise Meitner
       Mailbag: The World As We Find It

JUSTICE BLOCKS ORACLE TAKEOVER OF PEOPLESOFT
     Calling its action "the right thing to do to protect competition in an
important market," the U.S. Justice Department has filed a lawsuit to block
Oracle's hostile takeover of PeopleSoft. New York attorney general Eliot
Spitzer, representing one of the seven states that joined the lawsuit in
opposition to the merger, says: "Without PeopleSoft in the market, Oracle
would lose the incentive to offer lower prices, better services and more
innovative products." Oracle says it will "vigorously" challenge the Justice
Department's lawsuit. (New York Times 27 Feb 2004)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2004/02/27/technology/27oracle.html

VERISIGN SUES ICANN
     VeriSign has filed a federal lawsuit against ICANN, the regulatory
body, charging that ICANN has unfairly prevented VeriSign from developing
new services for Internet users. According to the suit, ICANN "has
overstepped its authority by trying to become the regulator of the
Internet." ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)
is a nongovernmental organization empowered by an agreement with the U.S.
government, whereas VeriSign is a private-sector corporation. The lawsuit
alleges that ICANN improperly prevented the company from maintaining an
online search service, 'SiteFinder', that redirected mis-typed Internet
addresses to an advertising-supported search service operated by VeriSign. A
VeriSign executive said that ICANN had no authority to force it to shut down
Site Finder, and complains: "Working the ICANN process is like being nibbled
to death by ducks." But critics of VeriSign say that SiteFinder, by
redirecting attempts to access non-existent Web sites, would force the
rewriting of hundreds of programs and devices across the Internet.
(Washington Post 26 Feb 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9415-2004Feb26.html

VIRTUAL WAR GAMES
     Three aircraft carriers at Navy bases on both U.S. coasts are engaged
this week in a virtual war game that uses computers to simulate battle
conditions at sea. Vice Adm. Albert H. Konetzni Jr. says: "This will bring
war-gaming to a new level. It will put the operators, the players, under
great stress. They will be making decisions that are truly, truly critical
to the carrying out of the operations, and it allows the operators, even
down to the unit level, to really understand how they play in these
scenarios." One of the participants in the exercise says: "We're trying to
simulate all conditions of warfare that we could encounter: mine, surface,
air, asymmetric threats like a small boat attack. All that stuff that could
be damaging to the Navy is put forward into this war game." (San Jose
Mercury News 27 Feb 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/8050087.htm

PUTTING AN END TO SPOOFING
     To stop Internet "spoofing"-- the sending of mail from someone who
pretends to be someone else -- Microsoft and Yahoo are each developing
systems aimed at authenticating senders of e-mail, as are companies such as
America Online, Sendmail, Brightmail, and Amazon. Microsoft's proposal
(Caller ID for E-mail) would require Internet service providers to submit
lists of unique numeric addresses for their mail servers so that, on the
message receiving end, software could check a database to verify that a
message actually originated from one of its registered machines. Yahoo's
proposal (DomainKeys) would use encryption to digitally sign messages, and
if the sender or message content were altered the signature would get
rejected. Experts predict that some combination of the techniques will be
ready for use later this year. Margaret Olson of the Email Service Provider
Coalition's technology committee says that once enough service and software
providers adopt the technology, "getting unauthenticated mail delivered will
be extremely difficult." (AP/USA Today 26 Feb 2004)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2004-02-26-end-of-spoof_x
htm

CHILD PORN RAIDS IN TEN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES
     Interpol, the European Union police agency, says that coordinated
police raids in 10 countries have broken a number of Internet child
pornography networks and arrested people in more than 40 locations. The main
focus of the raids were in Wiesbaden, Germany, but other countries where
raids took place were Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway,
Peru, Spain, Sweden and Britain. (Los Angeles Times 27 Feb 2004)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fg-briefs27.3feb27,1,3762006.story?coll
=la-headlines-technology

*****

FLASH CARD
     "Life need not be easy provided only that it is not empty."  (Lise
Meitner)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: LISE MEITNER
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Vienna-born physicist Lise Meitner
(1878-1968); she shared the 1966 Enrico Fermi Award with chemists Otto Hahn
and Fritz Strassmann for the joint research that led to the discovery of
uranium fission -- thereby laying the theoretical groundwork for the
development of the atomic bomb and nuclear power.
     Coining the term "fission" for the process, Meitner (working in Sweden
with her nephew, physicist Otto Frisch) discovered how a uranium atom
bombarded with neutrons splits and releases massive quantities of energy.
Her discovery was based on a careful re-analysis of the results of nuclear
experiments she had conducted in 1930s Germany with her long-time
collaborator and close friend, chemist Otto Hahn. Being Jewish, Meitner was
forced to flee to Sweden after Hitler invaded Austria in 1938. Hahn sent her
the data from their experiments, and in 1939 she published her
groundbreaking findings in the journal Nature.
     Born the daughter of a Viennese doctor, Meitner became interested in
atomic physics in 1902 after reading about Marie and Pierre Curie's
discovery of radium. In 1906 she became one of the first women to receive a
doctorate from the University of Vienna. Moving to Berlin to study with
quantum theorist Max Planck, she also began her working association with the
radiochemist Otto Hahn, a relationship that lasted 30 years and brought both
of them international fame. In 1918 the pair discovered protactinium,
(chemical element 91 that occupies the position between thorium and uranium
on the periodic table).
     Meitner spent the World War I years working as an X-ray nurse with the
Austrian army. Returning to Germany after the war to work with Hahn, they
were at the point of discovering how to split the uranium atom when in 1938
Meitner had to leave for Sweden to escape Nazi persecution. Nine months
later Hahn announced his success in splitting the atom. He sent Meitner the
results of his experimentation for analysis, providing her with the data she
needed to explain the process at work when bombarding one uranium atom with
a neutron could release some 200 million electron volts.
     Despite having come up with the key concept of atomic fission, Meitner
was overlooked when the 1944 Nobel Prize was awarded to Kahn for splitting
the atom.
     The Danish physicist Niels Bohr brought Meitner's work on fission to
the attention of the scientists in America who were working on the atomic
bomb, whose development came as a surprise to Meitner. After the war, she
was at pains to note that she had no part in its development, stating that
her atomic research was never undertaken with the goal of "producing
death-dealing weapons." She remained in Stockholm, working at the Atomic
Energy Laboratory, until 1958 when she retired and moved to Cambridge,
England. She also broke with Hahn, not because of the Nobel Prize snub, but
because he along with other German scientists never stood up to Hitler.

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/081763732X/newsscancom/ref=nos
im for Patricia Rife's "Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age" -- 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


COPYRIGHT QUID PRO QUO
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10118
     Some years ago, a lawyer friend of mine (I'm a former mergers and
acquisitions investment banker for the media and technology industries)
informed me that copyright laws were enacted originally with the intent of
*promoting distribution* of copyrighted works, for the benefit of readers,
largely by offering protections to the copyright holders.  Today, it seems
that the copyright holders are driving the bus, which is opposite from the
consumer-driven basis upon which early copyright laws were founded.
     In those days, there was really only one method of distribution
(print), whereas today there are many distribution methods, electronic and
otherwise. Putting aside for the moment whether current copyright laws
need/should be amended to account for these new distribution methods, I
can't help but think that the whole muck surrounding current copyrights
could be rationally settled if we returned to copyrights' early roots.
Specifically, it seems to me that if, in return for the financial and other
benefits a copyright holder enjoys, there were in turn an obligation on the
part of the copyright holder to make their copyrighted works available in
the various distribution methods (i.e., media) of today, we'd all be in a
better place.
     After all, most companies that get the benefit of selling products to
the public are also burdened with the obligation to stand behind the product
(implied warranties), comply with local, state and federal laws in
manufacturing and distributing the product, etc., etc.
     Where are similar obligations codified for copyright holders? None that
I can see...
     Require EMI and others to make their works available in various
electronic media, as a quid pro quo for owning a copyright, and both sides I
think will be happy. Consumers will get what they want, and copyright
holders will be compensated. Whether that compensation is "fair" or not is a
matter of a business negotiation, not the moral imperative to which many
media companies have attempted to elevate this controversy. (L. Mark Stone,
President, Reliable Networks of Maine LLC)

WHO NEEDS ANYTHING SO COMPLICATED
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10134
     I owned a Radio Your Way for about 11 minutes. It is the single most
complicated piece of electronics I can imagine. No one who has ever seen one
could ever recommend it. You'd have to be 8 years old to use it. (I couldn't
even figure out how to turn the thing on.) I bought mine from Amazon.com.
Opened the box, fiddled with it, put it back in the box, and sent it back.
It cost me $5, too -- Amazon doesn't pay for returns if it's not their
fault, which is fair. (Ken Robinson)

WHO WOULD BUY THIS STUFF IF IT COST ANY MONEY?
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10137
     Your item on the cost of video and computer game piracy seems to miss a
point. It is in the recording industry's best interests to assume that all
those allegedly pirated copies would have been purchased legitimately. I
respectfully suggest that many people would not purchase these items if the
price were any higher than the free or cheap prices for pirated items. These
industry "studies" need to be adjusted to reflect this after additional
studies are completed to establish the magnitude of the non-potential
purchasers. (Robert R ³Jake² Jakoubek, Marion, Iowa)

EVIDENCE OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY'S MALFEASANCE
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10136
     The EFF is to be applauded for trying to find a middle ground between
the recording industry and P2P developers. RIAA does a great job with spin.
While they trumpet a few million downloads, they fail to mention that it is
a negligible fraction compared to P2P's hundreds of BILLIONS of files.
Something that's been overlooked is that the checks for the music industry's
CD Price Fixing Settlement have finally been mailed out to millions of
consumers. It's hard to trust RIAA when this Settlement is concrete evidence
of the music industry's malfeasance, which consumers have known all along
when they say CD's are overpriced. An innovative program has been developed
by DonateMyMusicCheck.com to donate the Settlement checks to the EFF and
hopefully find a reasonable solution for all parties. (Marc Freedman, Future
Vision)

CELLS ARE BETTER AT MATH THAN BIOLOGISTS
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10129
     My favourite newsletter elicits thinking once again.  David Saunders'
comments on DNA and computer speed posted in NewsScan of February 25, 2004
elicits some concern about what is really going on in some cell in some
laboratory somewhere; or in the mind of PR intermediaries.
     The speed of computers at three billion CPU cycles per second is quite
fast. There are supposedly around three billion bases per human genome with
at least two strands per cell. Perhaps backup copies are ignored. In the
process of creating an embryo there is perhaps a minimum of about three
billion transactions in a short time interval. If this process took a week
in vivo, just how fast would things be going in that small space. I can not
reason further because my mind is now boggled by the speed, mobility and
sheer numbers involved. There are obviously compatibility problems to be
resolved as a first order of business for the invaded cell. Astronomical
distances and time just present large numbers, that I can handle, but a
minimum of three billion potential interactions (decisions) occurring before
the first cell split hints at some simplification somewhere. Of course the
experimenter only has to work with one cell at a time and the detail is
managed by the cell. I think cells are therefore much better at mathematics
than biologists. (Tom Mousseau, Ottawa Canada)

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