NewsScan Daily, 22 March 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 22 March 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        ISPs Struggle to Find Fix for Spam
        The Battle of the Desktop Heats Up
        Sales of Customer Data Rile Australian Telecom Users
        Electronic Arts Meets the Academy
        The Online Honesty Paradox

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Helen Free

ISPs STRUGGLE TO FIND FIX FOR SPAM
      Unless you've been hibernating the last six months, you know that 
spam not only is a consumer headache -- it's turning into a corporate 
nightmare. U.S. companies spend an estimated $1 billion a year in extra 
security, human resources and lost productivity thanks to this 
cyber-plague, which comprises anywhere between 50-90% of all e-mail. 
Despite universal agreement on the problem, major ISPs have not been 
successful in devising a coordinated approach to fight it, relying instead 
on lawsuits that at best will be only marginally successful at stemming the 
flow. Yahoo reportedly is moving toward implementing a DomainKeys system 
that's used to verify the identity of an e-mail sender, while AOL has 
recently begun testing a DNS-based system called Sender Policy Framework 
(SPF). Meanwhile, Microsoft has developed its own system called Caller ID 
for E-mail and several other efforts, such as the Trusted E-Mail Open 
Standard, are also available. Experts agree that the balkanization of ISP 
efforts to deal with spam will delay any final solution, and they're 
looking to the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) to come up with a 
solution that incorporates the best features of these disparate systems. 
"Sooner or later, we are going to see what is going to be a compromise 
proposal that includes elements from the more workable proposals being put 
forward -- DomainKeys and SPF, for example," says the CTO for Outblaze, an 
e-mail service provider. (CNet News.com 22 Mar 2004)
http://news.com.com/2100-7349-5176415.html

THE BATTLE OF THE DESKTOP HEATS UP
      For the first time since Netscape hit the market in the 1990s, 
Microsoft is facing stiff competition in the computer desktop arena, with 
Google and Yahoo eager to depose Microsoft by offering compelling 
alternatives designed to guide PC users through the Web. "The Web has 
created the equivalent of an operating system layered on top of the 
computer's operating system," says former tech magazine publisher John 
Battelle. "There is some question of how important that underlying 
operating system is going to be in the future." For now, search engines 
appear to be the most potent magnet for drawing users' eyeballs -- a 
phenomenon that has enabled Google to leapfrog from No. 26 in 2001 to third 
place behind Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN without spending anything on 
advertising. About 114.5 million Americans, or 39% of the U.S. population, 
now use search engines, and businesses spent an estimated $2 billion last 
year on search-related advertising. And while Google is currently the dark 
horse darling among analysts, Yahoo and Microsoft are pouring millions into 
upgrading their search technologies. The rival search engines "may not end 
up being as good as Google's, but they could be good enough for most 
people," says a Forrester Research analyst. That prospect has Google hard 
at work on ratcheting up its own technology, says director of technology 
Craig Silverstein. "If someone should come along and do a better job than 
us, we know people will switch in a heartbeat." (AP 22 Mar 2004)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20040322/D81FHFIG0.html

SALES OF CUSTOMER DATA RILE AUSTRALIAN TELECOM USERS
      Australian telecommunications service providers are selling customer 
information to other companies for direct marketing and other commercial 
activities, according to the Australian Communications Authority. Acting 
ACA chairman Bob Horton cites evidence that customers' information is being 
collected by producers of public number directories and collated with data 
from other sources to create consumer "profiles": "Current use of 
telecommunications customer data appears to go beyond what is allowed under 
existing legislation. In fact, our investigations indicate that databases 
are being created and maintained based on information provided by customers 
to their telecommunications service providers. These databases are then 
sold to other companies for direct marketing and other commercial 
activities. In the ACA's opinion, this is not only a breach of existing law 
but also outside what customers providing personal information expect to 
happen." (The Age 19 Mar 2004, rec'd from John Lamp, Deakin University)
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/03/19/1079199400334.html

ELECTRONIC ARTS MEETS THE ACADEMY
      Videogame maker Electronic Arts is donating $8 million to the 
University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television, which will 
be used to fund the creation of a three-year master's degree program in 
videogame design and fund an endowed faculty chair. Electronic Arts' move 
follows similar deals by other game makers including Nintendo, which funds 
a professorship at the DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, Wash. 
The trend reflects game makers' desire to attract qualified job candidates 
and professionalize the industry. "We're looking at universities as the 
next-generation of talent," says Electronic Arts' executive VP Rusty Rueff. 
Videogame software saw $17 billion in sales worldwide last year -- up 3.7% 
from $16.4 billion the year before. (Wall Street Journal 22 Mar 2004)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107988471925261088,00.html (sub req'd)

THE ONLINE HONESTY PARADOX
      Cornell University professor Jeffrey Hancock conducted an experiment 
recently that concluded people are less likely to fib online than when 
talking in person or on the phone. While this proposition flies in the face 
of warnings over psycho-weirdos lurking in chat rooms and on cyber-dating 
sites, New York Times columnist Clive Thompson says actually it makes 
sense, considering the relative durability of the e-mail message. While a 
lie spoken in person or over the phone can later be denied, on the 
Internet, your words may come back to haunt you. "Today's titans of 
industry are laid low not by ruthless competitors but by prosecutors 
gleefully waving transcripts of old e-mail, filled with suggestions of 
subterfuge… We all read the headlines; we know that in cyberspace our words 
don't die, because machines don't forget." A second contributing factor, 
says Thompson, is that there's "something about the Internet that 
encourages us to spill our guts, often in rather outrageous ways. 
Psychologists have noticed for years that going online seems to have 
catalytic effect on people's personalities." Indeed, an experiment 
conducted by Open University psychologist Adam Johnson found that strangers 
chatting online were much more likely to offer up personal details about 
themselves than when conversing face-to-face. "Our impulse to confess via 
cyberspace inverts much of what we think about honesty," says Thompson, 
citing the current corporate convention of flying cross-country for that 
all-important five-minute face-to-face meeting before signing off on a 
deal. Instead, Thompson suggests that "as more and more of our daily life 
moves online, we could find ourselves living in an increasingly honest 
world, or at least one in which lies have ever more serious consequences." 
(New York Times 21 Mar 2004)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/21/magazine/21ESSAY.html

*****

FLASH CARD
      "People always talk to me about my drinking; they never ask me about 
my thirst." (Oscar Levant)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: HELEN FREE
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the American chemist Helen Murray Free 
(b.1923), who together with her husband and fellow chemist, Alfred Free, 
invented the home test used by diabetics to monitor their blood sugar 
levels. Free first developed laboratory urinalysis testing procedures, from 
which she later designed the "dip-and-read" test that could be 
self-administered at home. In a long and productive career Free earned 
patents on seven of her medical and clinical urinalysis testing procedures.
      Born Helen Mae Murray in Pittsburgh in 1923, Free majored in 
chemistry at the College of Wooster in Ohio. In 1944 she graduated with 
honors and accepted a research position at Miles Laboratories in Elkhart, 
Indiana, where she would work for the next 50 years. In 1947 she married 
Albert Free. Working as a team, the couple eventually became expert in the 
field of urinalysis, a clinical procedure with a number of important 
medical applications. The Frees first developed methods and materials that 
became standard for urinalysis testing in the laboratory setting. Later, 
they modified their procedures for direct testing by consumers. Most 
important, of course, was Helen Free's invention of the home diabetes test, 
giving diabetics an essential tool in monitoring their glucose levels.
      Miles Laboratories recognized Free's abilities and promoted her over 
time to positions as New Products Manager and Director of Clinical 
Laboratory Reagents. When Miles was bought out by Bayer, Inc., Free became 
a Professional Relations Consultant in their Diagnostics Division. She also 
earned an M.A. in Management (Health Care Administration) from Central 
Michigan University and was an Adjunct Professor of Management at Indiana 
University, South Bend, for almost 20 years. In addition, she held 
leadership roles in professional associations such as the American 
Association for Clinical Chemistry and the American Chemical Society, and 
she has been an active voice in promoting science education, seeking to 
recruit female and underprivileged students.

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/076455154X/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for "Diabetes for Dummies" -- or look for it in your favorite library. (We 
donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy programs.)

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