NewsScan Daily, 30 March 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 30 March 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        AOL Unveils Spam Victim Sweepstakes
        Music Industry Targets European File-Sharers
        Study Contradicts Music Industry's Piracy Claims
        LidRock Exploits the Power of Soda Sales
        Gates Envisions 'Almost Free' Hardware

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About: When is a Port Not a Port?
        Safe & Sound in the Cyber Age

AOL UNVEILS SPAM VICTIM SWEEPSTAKES
      America Online is launching a sweepstakes program that will award 
victims of spam various assets seized from spammers. The top prize is a 
2002 Porsche Boxster S, purchased with the proceeds from a lawsuit settled 
with a spammer -- one of five antispam lawsuits that AOL filed in federal 
court last year. AOL executive VP and general counsel Randall Boe says the 
company sees the sweepstakes program as a "great way to teach spammers a 
lesson, and reward our members for their continued use of the 'Report Spam' 
button." The sweepstakes started at 5:00 a.m. this morning and will run 
till 11:59 p.m. eastern time on April 8th. Details can be found at AOL.com. 
(Internet News 30 Mar 2004)
http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3332991

MUSIC INDUSTRY TARGETS EUROPEAN FILE-SHARERS
      The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry has filed 
lawsuits against 247 people in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Canada, and 
warns of "further waves of lawsuits against major offenders" in coming 
months. The actions in Germany and Italy alleged criminal copyright 
infringement activity, because a criminal designation is required in order 
to obtain names from Internet service providers. The lawsuits are aimed 
primarily at large-scale file-sharers, with one case in Denmark allegedly 
involving more than 50,000 songs, according to IFPI chairman and CEO Jay 
Berman. The music industry has blamed piracy, both online and physical, for 
contributing to a decline in music sales over the past few years, from $38 
billion in 1998 to $30 billion in 2003. In Denmark, CD sales have slipped 
by about 50% in the past four years. "The stealing has got to stop," says 
Johan Schluter, secretary general of the Danish Recording Industry 
Association. "Record stores are closing down, and artists find it 
increasingly difficult to get their music released." (Wall Street Journal 
30 Mar 2004)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108064072739668951,00.html (sub req'd)

STUDY CONTRADICTS MUSIC INDUSTRY'S PIRACY CLAIMS
     Two university researchers have released a study that indicates online 
music piracy has no negative effect on legitimate music sales, and in fact 
boosts sales in some cases. "Consumption of music increases dramatically 
with the introduction of file sharing, but not everybody who likes to 
listen to music was a music customer before, so it's very important to 
separate the two," says Felix Oberholzer-Gee, an associate professor at 
Harvard Business School, who co-authored the study. Oberholzer-Gee and his 
colleague, University of North Carolina professor Koleman Strumpf, say 
their "most pessimistic" statistical model indicates that only 2 million CD 
sales were lost due to illegal file-sharing in 2002, whereas CD sales 
declined by 139 million units between 2000 and 2002. "From a statistical 
point of view, what this means is that there is no effect between 
downloading and sales," says Oberholzer-Gee. The study's results contradict 
the recording industry's assertions that their financial decline is 
attributable in large part to music piracy, citing several studies that 
have supported that claim. However, some other research groups said the 
Harvard-UNC study conclusions appeared to mirror their own research 
findings. "While some people seemed to buy less after file sharing, more 
people seemed to buy more," says Jupiter Research analyst Aram Sinnreich, 
who conducted similar studies in 1999 and 2002. (Washington Post 29 Mar 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34300-2004Mar29.html

LIDROCK EXPLOITS THE POWER OF SODA SALES
      Jeffrey T. Arnold, a co-founder of WebMD, has seen his future and 
it's in the lid of a 34-oz. plastic soda cup. His new venture, dubbed 
LidRock, will use those ubiquitous soda containers to distribute 
promotional 3- and 5-inch CDs to customers in movie theaters, fast-food 
establishments and sports venues. "It's an absolutely fantastic form of 
alternative distribution in the future," says Arista Records executive 
Larry Mestal. "Most people tend to buy records the traditional way -- at 
stores or online. Why not reach customers where they're spending money?" A 
number of record companies have signed up for the LidRock service, which 
plans to distribute 50 million soda lids with CDs featuring artists like 
Avril Lavigne, Pharrell Williams and Britney Spears by the end of 2004. 
Drinks with the special lids will generally sell for an extra dollar or 
two, although Regal CineMedia says it will distribute the lids free to 
customers who buy large-size drinks. Meanwhile, Arnold's future plans call 
for selling movies in a soda lid -- either DVD versions of older films, or 
first-run movies that "self-destruct" after 60 hours. "The technology's out 
there," he says. (New York Times 29 Mar 2004)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/29/technology/29arnold.html

GATES ENVISIONS 'ALMOST FREE' HARDWARE
      Hardware costs will decline dramatically in the coming decade, 
predicts Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, leading the way for widespread 
adoption of cutting edge technologies like voice and handwriting 
recognition. "Ten years out, in terms of actual hardware costs, you can 
almost think of hardware as being free -- I'm not saying it will be 
absolutely free -- but in terms of the power of the servers, the power of 
the network will not be a limiting factor… Many of the holy grails of 
computing that have been worked on over the last 30 years will be solved 
within this 10-year period, with speech being in every device and having a 
device that's like a tablet that you just carry around." (Reuters/CNet 30 
Mar 2004)
http://news.com.com/2100-1012-5181789.html

*****

FLASH CARD
      "I feel that if a person has problems communicating the very least he 
can do is to shut up." (Tom Lehrer)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: WHEN IS A PORT NOT A PORT?
      Essayist Phillip Lopate calls attention to a significant change in 
the idea of what a "port" is:
      "The advent of containerized shipping, in its demands for acres and 
acres of backspace to load, unload, store, and truck the containers, has 
meant that, over the last forty years, in city after city around the world, 
the port functions have had to be moved, sometimes seaward, inland, or 
upstream, to rural or suburban areas where there was more available cheap 
land. This severing of the age-old connection between city and port is 
having profound cultural and economic effects, which we may not fully grasp 
for some time. At the moment, all we know is that cities all over the map 
are faced with empty harbors, and lots of underutilized waterfront property."
                                ***
See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0609605054/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Phillip Lopate's "Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan" -- 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
"On The Road Again, by Stephen Cobb and Chey Cobb. [This column was 
inadvertently omitted from yesterday's issue of NewsScan Daily.]
              ***
      We've just returned from a business trip during which computer 
security was very much on our minds, so today's column begins a refresher 
course in mobile computer security. Some of our observations may strike you 
as obvious, but bear in mind two things. First, you may be endowed with 
above-average security-savvy. The flip side is that your colleagues, 
however brilliant they are in some things, may be less than sparkling in 
others, such as protecting information assets on the road.
      Second, the stakes are likely to be higher now than they were the 
last time you reviewed nightmare scenarios like "The Missing Laptop." Why? 
The Travel Industry Association of America predicts that U.S. residents 
will take more than 122 million business trips in 2004, an improvement of 
4.2% from 2003. And we think the percentage of business travelers taking 
portable computing devices on the trips is higher than it has ever been. We 
couldn't find any statistics, but watch the security line at the airport 
for an hour or so (next time your plane is delayed) and you will probably 
agree the figure is over 50%.
      So let's assume 70 million "computer-equipped" trips will be made in 
2004. To a security person, that's 70 million chances for something to go 
wrong, and the things that can go wrong today are more serious than the 
things that could go wrong a few years ago. For a start, we make much more 
extensive use of our notebook computers today. We're accustomed to storing 
all manner of information on them, personal as well as corporate. In the 
wrong hands, some of that information can be anything from embarrassing to 
costly to downright dangerous.
      Now factor in the rapid growth of high speed Internet access. This 
enables huge leaps in productivity (such as the "opportunity" to perform a 
last minute, multi-stage, pre-dawn review of the three-megabyte 
presentation your team is due to deliver to the client at 9AM). But 
broadband connectivity in the range of 256Kbps and beyond also means that 
someone who gains unauthorized access to your computer or your network 
gains a whole lot more than when "high speed" meant a dial-up connection 
that maybe hit 48Kbps if you were lucky.
      A significant percentage of today's "road warrior" notebooks are 
configured for remote access to the corporate network, probably via Virtual 
Private Network (VPN), most likely encrypted and restricted by strong 
passwords. But if I steal your notebook there is a good chance I can use it 
to gain access to your VPN. Often the log on process is automated to avoid 
the tedium of entering passwords; or the password is something I could 
guess after browsing through your files. And even if you use some sort of 
smart card or token to log on, there's a good chance I will steal that 
along with the computer. Now, if I have your computer and your credentials, 
I become you as far as the corporate network is concerned, a vector for 
data theft, data damage, virus infection, worm propagation, spamming, and more.
      This is a costly problem. According to the 2002 Computer Security 
Institute/FBI Computer Crime & Security Survey, the theft of a laptop 
results in an average financial loss of $89,000; and for seven consecutive 
years losses due to laptop theft have been second only to losses due to 
computer viruses. The Safeware Insurance Group, which insures against some 
types of loss due to laptop theft, reported in 2002 that 53% more notebooks 
were stolen in 2001 than in 2000, even though business travel was way down 
after 9/11/2001.
      So let's review what we mean by "less than sparkling" when it comes 
to protecting information assets on the road. Suppose you agree to meet the 
clients for dinner after work. They select this really cool new restaurant 
in a funky part of town. You drive up in your rental car, but remember that 
your notebook is in the back seat, in a bag that looks a lot like a 
computer bag. So you lock the computer bag in the trunk of the car and head 
into the restaurant. Now, who was watching when you did that? Forcing the 
trunk of a car in a dimly lit restaurant parking lot is a low risk/high 
reward crime if you know the trunk contains a computer. Heck, we've seen 
four executives get out of a car at a restaurant and put their computers in 
the trunk.
      Whether the watcher is a crack addict looking to finance a fix, or 
someone hired by a highly unethical client (who suggested that particular 
restaurant), the immediate trauma of discovering the laptop is missing is 
the same. And unless you can uncover some clues as to who took it and why, 
you will never know if or when or how data from that machine will be abused.
      Fortunately, there are simple steps you can take to turn this 
scenario around. Consider taking the computer into the restaurant, 
preferably in a bag or briefcase that does not scream "computer" (a good 
excuse to a slim new notebook is the ability to slip it into an innocent 
looking portfolio or purse). If you don't have time to stop by your hotel 
and stash the computer in the room safe, avoid the obvious 
backseat-into-trunk maneuver by simply laying a coat over it.
      In our next column we will elaborate on preventative measures, 
including what to do if your hotel room does not have a safe.
      [Chey Cobb, CISSP, is the author of "Cryptography for Dummies" (John 
Wiley & Sons) and a former senior technical security advisor to the NRO. 
She can be emailed as chey at aug dot com. Stephen Cobb, CISSP, is the 
author of "Privacy for Business" (Dreva Hill). He can be emailed as scobb 
at cobb dot com.]

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