NewsScan Daily, 9 April 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 9 April 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Miscreants Target Mac OS X
        Anti-Spam Group Promotes Dot-Mail Domain
        Australia Deploys Fraud-Detecting Passport Scanners
        Software Bypasses CD Anti-Copying Protection
        Smart Cars Issue a Wake-Up Call

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Laszlo Biro

MISCREANTS TARGET MAC OS X
      Mac owners have long enjoyed a blissfully virus-free existence, but 
Apple's foray into digital music may have changed all that. A Trojan horse, 
dubbed MP3Concept or MP3Virus.gen, has wormed its way into circulation, 
masquerading as an MP3 file. "This is the first native Mac OS virus we've 
found," says Brian Davis, a sales manager for Intego, a Mac security firm 
that discovered the problem. The Trojan is benign, according to Intego. 
"This is likely a test Trojan showing these things are possible. There's 
definitely an open door we don't want to leave open," says Davis. The 
Trojan hides in ID tags of an MP3 file and is activated when clicked on by 
unwary users who think it's a music file. It then proceeds to access files 
in the System folder, and although it doesn't go beyond accessing at this 
point, Intego warns that it easily could be modified to perform more 
destructive acts, such as deleting files or hijacking a machine. The sudden 
appearance of the Trojan is attributable to Apple's higher profile, thanks 
to the growing popularity of its iTunes digital music store, says Davis: 
"Given Apple's previous market share, OS X wasn't a challenge. As Apple 
becomes more visible, it's more of an attractive target." (Wired.com 9 Apr 
2004)
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,63000,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

ANTI-SPAM GROUP PROMOTES DOT-MAIL DOMAIN
      Anti-spam organization Spamhaus is proposing a new "dot-mail" domain 
that would act as a "white list," guaranteeing that all mail sent from it 
would be spam-free. Companies with dot-mail addresses would be required to 
ask e-mail recipients for their permission to send mail as well as a 
confirmation upon receipt. Spamhaus has offered to review all dot-mail 
applicants to ensure that they are legitimate, but would charge a hefty fee 
of $2,000 to do so. One big uncertainty is whether ICANN will approve the 
new domain, which is under consideration along with dot-tel, dot-travel and 
dot-xxx, among others. E-mail marketers have expressed interest in the 
idea, although there's concern over how it would be managed. "There doesn't 
seem to be any process built in for how to get yourself one of these 
dot-mail names if they don't choose to give it to you," says a Direct 
Marketing Association spokesman. The biggest hurdle, however, will be 
convincing the major ISPs to go along, says Al DiGuido, CEO of bulk 
e-mailer Bigfoot Interactive. "This idea is stillborn until that happens. 
Unless Yahoo, MSN or AOL gets behind them, it's going to be a real uphill 
battle." (Washington Post 8 Apr 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61997-2004Apr8.html

AUSTRALIA DEPLOYS FRAUD-DETECTING PASSPORT SCANNERS
      Australia has installed 400 iA-thenticate document readers from 
Imaging Automation in its airports in the hope of authenticating the 
passports of every person entering the country. The shoebox-sized device 
uses multiple light sources to examine hundreds of security features on 
travel documents. Many of the features, such as the composition of the ink 
used, are invisible to the naked eye. The iA-thenticate system ranges from 
$5,000 to $15,000 per unit and is being used or tested by a number of 
countries, including Canada, Hungary, Sweden, Finland and Nigeria. Imaging 
Automation is marketing the system to the U.S. Department of Homeland 
Security, which is facing delays in deployment fingerprint and facial 
biometric systems for passport-authentication. (AP 9 Apr 2004)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20040409/D81R97HO2.html

SOFTWARE BYPASSES CD ANTI-COPYING PROTECTION
      A new software program developed by German computer magazine c't 
(Computertechnik) and RapidSolution Software takes a decidedly low-tech 
approach to bypassing the copy-protection technologies that some music 
companies are including in their CDs. UnCDcopy works by recording the 
analog output from a regular CD player and automatically reconfiguring the 
analog file into digital format, splitting the file into separate tracks 
just like the original. The quality of the UnCDcopy version is 
significantly less than that of a digital copy, but will still work. "This 
is like CD to tape copying, only brought into the 21st century," says Jim 
Peters, a representative of the UK's Campaign for Digital Rights. "It will 
let you defeat any copy prevention system, but in an obvious low-tech way." 
(New Scientist 8 Apr 2004)
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994866

SMART CARS ISSUE A WAKE-UP CALL
      Volvo has announced plans to include new technology designed to wake 
up drowsy drivers in its cars and SUVs before the end of the decade. Ford 
Motor Co., which owns Volvo, has tested computerized optical scanning to 
detect sleepiness, and is experimenting with a variety of warnings, 
including a vibrating steering wheel, the sound of a car driving over 
rumble strips, and a visual warning projected on the windshield. 
Researchers have also taken the concept one step further, testing an 
"active" system that would actually adjust the steering automatically if 
the driver veered out of his or her lane too far. Meanwhile, Infiniti says 
it will begin offering lane-departure alert systems in its 2005 FX SUV 
later this year and in its 2006 M45 luxury sedan. A 2002 poll conducted by 
the National Sleep Foundation showed that roughly half of adult drivers -- 
51% -- said they'd operated a vehicle while feeling drowsy in the past 
year. (AP/CNN.com 8 Apr 2004)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/04/08/drowsy.driver.ap/index.html

*****

FLASH CARD
      "A man's penmanship is an unfailing index of his character, moral and 
mental, and a criterion by which to judge his peculiarities of taste and 
sentiments." (4th Earl of Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: LASZLO BIRO
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Hungarian journalist Laszlo Biro 
(1899-1985), who invented the ballpoint pen. As a newspaper man Biro became 
aware that the ink used in printing newspapers was quick-drying and left 
paper smudge free as well as dry. He tried using the ink in a fountain pen 
but found that it was too viscous to flow into the pen's nib. With the help 
of his brother George Biro, a chemist, he replaced the fountain pen's nib 
with a ball and socket device that allowed the ball to roll freely, while 
picking up ink from the pen's cartridge and depositing it on the paper.
      The Biro brothers patented the pen in 1938, giving it their family 
name, the biro. A similar writing device had been patented by John J. Loud 
in 1888, but it was never developed commercially. Because of the war in 
Europe, the Biro brothers immigrated to Argentina in 1940, where in 1943 
they took out a new patent on their biro pen and formed the Eterpen Company 
to distribute the product commercially. Almost immediately the biro pen was 
licensed by the British RAF, who recognized the pen's value as a substitute 
for fountain pens that leaked at high altitudes. In 1945 the Eversharp 
Company acquired exclusive marketing rights for the Biro Pens of Argentina 
under the brand name of Eversharp CA, with the CA meant to designate the 
pen's capillary action. It is still the case, however, that the ballpoint 
pen is widely referred to as a biro in many European countries, Australia 
and New Zealand.
      Today the highly popular modern version of Laszlo Biro's pen, the BIC 
Crystal, has a daily world-wide sales figure of 14,000,000 pens.

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0140282025/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Ray Kurzweill's "The Age of Spiritual Machines" (of which the biro pen 
may be an early precursor) -- or look for it in the multimedia section of 
your favorite library. (We donate all revenue from our book recommendations 
to adult literacy programs.)

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Copyright 2004. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
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