NewsScan Daily, 17 August 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 17 August 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        RealNetworks Ups the Ante, Slashes Prices
        One in Five Engineers Lacks 4-Year Degree
        Improvisational Computerized Music
        Australian State Paves Way for Linux Move
        Yahoo Gets Into the Domain Name Game

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About: Fundamentalism
        Safe & Sound in the Cyber Age: Bending Ears
        Publishing Note

REALNETWORKS UPS THE ANTE, SLASHES PRICES
      In a strategy to undermine Apple Computer's dominance in the online 
music market, RealNetworks is cutting its prices at the RealPlayer Music 
Store to 49 cents per song and $4.99 per album. Apple's iTunes Music Store 
sells songs for 99 cents apiece and albums for $9.99. The discount will 
prove a losing proposition for RealNetworks in the short term, because it 
will be charging less than it pays music companies in royalties, but 
RealNetworks hopes its radical move will help to unseat Apple, which by 
some estimates commands a 70% share of the music-download market. 
RealNetworks also seeks to draw attention to its Harmony technology, which 
enables users to listen to songs purchased from RealPlayer on Apple iPod 
music players. Up until now, iPods have played only music purchased at 
iTunes. (Wall Street Journal 17 Aug 2004)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109269116575992799,00.html (sub req'd)

ONE IN FIVE ENGINEERS LACKS 4-YEAR DEGREE
      It turns out that more than 20% of U.S. science and engineering 
workers do not have a four-year bachelor's degree, according to a new 
report issued by the National Science Foundation. Five percent hold high 
school diplomas and 17% have two-year associate's degrees. The study 
indicates that in the in the computer and math science fields, the 
percentage of those without four-year degrees is about 40%.The news 
highlights a growing crisis in the U.S., as the number of science and 
engineering doctorate degrees granted continues to fall and the number of 
educational visas issued to foreign candidates also shrinks. Despite these 
dismal figures, NSF data indicates that graduate enrollment in science and 
engineering programs reached a record of nearly 455,000 students in fall 
2002. (CNet News.com 16 Aug 2004)
http://news.com.com/2100-1022-5312309.html

IMPROVISATIONAL COMPUTERIZED MUSIC
      A group of musicians working at British universities is experimenting 
with computer acoustic software designed to respond to notes played by a 
live musician in an improvisational "jam" session. "It's very exciting 
because until recently, pre-programmed music was very one-dimensional," 
says Peter Wiegold, head of Music Research and Brunel University. "Now, 
because computers are so fast, the computer will respond instantly and will 
throw something back at you that you may not have thought of, or that you 
may not have ever heard before. They can change texture, pitch, all sorts 
of things that until recently, were not possible." The software, developed 
by Ircam, the Paris-based Institute of Research and Co-ordination of 
Acoustics and Music, will never replace human musicians, says Wiegold, but 
it can enhance what they do by combining art with science. "You can never 
recreate what a human does. What you can do is bring a computer into the 
equation and see what happens." A live performance and album of 
cello-computer duets is planned for next year. (CNN.com 16 Aug 2004)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/08/16/digital.music/index.html

AUSTRALIAN STATE PAVES WAY FOR LINUX MOVE
      The New South Wales Government is on the verge of putting its 
government-wide Linux plans into action, preparing to go to tender for a 
raft of enterprise Linux products to be used across state agencies in a 
project worth up to $50 million. The tender will cover the provision of 
"enterprise level Linux system software, application software and 
associated services for desktop and server environments" on a 
whole-of-government basis, according to the NSW Department of Commerce, 
which runs both the state's procurement and IT policy. The formal request 
for tender will be issued within two weeks, with successful bidders placed 
on a "panel contract" of approved suppliers of Linux products for NSW 
government agencies. (The Australian, 13 Aug 2004) rec'd from John Lamp, 
Deakin U.
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,10431763%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html

YAHOO GETS INTO THE DOMAIN NAME GAME
      Yahoo plans to start selling Internet domain names, adding to its 
existing Web hosting, Web site designs and business e-mail service 
packages. The company cites statistics showing more than 50,000 names are 
registered each day at prices ranging between $9 and $35 per year and VP 
Rich Riley says Yahoo hopes to market its services to the 10 million small 
businesses in the U.S. that still don't have a Web site. "We want to create 
a one-stop shop for them," says Riley. (Silicon.com 16 Aug 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9419886.htm

*****

FLASH CARD
      "There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe 
everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking." 
(Alfred Korzybski)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: FUNDAMENTALISM
      Karen Armstrong, a respected scholar of religion, finds the current 
almost-universal presence of fundamentalism worrisome.
      "One of the most startling developments of the late twentieth century 
has been the emergence within every major religious tradition of a militant 
piety popularly known as 'fundamentalism.' Its manifestations are sometimes 
shocking. Fundamentalists have gunned down worshippers in a mosque, have 
killed doctors and nurses who work in abortion clinics, have shot their 
presidents, and have even toppled a powerful government. It is only a small 
minority of fundamentalists who commit such acts of terror, but even the 
most peaceful and law-abiding are perplexing, because they seem so 
adamantly opposed to many of the most positive values of modern society.
      "This religious resurgence has taken many observers by surprise. In 
the middle years of the twentieth century, it was generally taken for 
granted that secularism was an irreversible trend and that faith would 
never again play a major part in world events. It was assumed that as human 
beings became more rational, they either would have no further need for 
religion or would be content to confine it to the immediately personal and 
private areas of their lives. But in the late 1970s, fundamentalists began 
to rebel against this secularist hegemony and started to wrest religion out 
of its marginal position and back to center stage. In this, at least, they 
have enjoyed remarkable success. Religion has once again become a force 
that no government can safely ignore. Fundamentalism has suffered defeats, 
but it is by no means quiescent. It is now an essential part of the modern 
scene and will certainly play an important role in the domestic and 
international affairs of the future. It is crucial, therefore, that we try 
to understand what this type of religiosity means, how and for what reasons 
it has developed, what it can tell us about our culture, and how best we 
should deal with it."
      [See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345391691/newsscancom/ref=nosim for 
Karen Armstrong's "The Battle For God" -- or look for it in the multimedia 
section of your favorite library. Note: We donate all revenue from our book 
recommendations to adult literacy programs.]

SAFE & SOUND IN THE CYBER AGE: BENDING EARS
      Have you seen the Steven Spielberg movie "Catch Me if You Can," 
starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks? It is loosely based on an 
autobiographical book of the same name, written by Frank Abagnale over 20 
years ago (he sold the book's movie rights in 1980). Here is what the Web 
site, www.abagnale.com, says about Mr. Abagnale:
      "More than 35 years ago he was known as one of the world's most 
famous confidence men...  He cashed $2.5 million in fraudulent checks in 
every state and 26 foreign countries over a five-year period. Between the 
ages of 16 and 21, he successfully posed as an airline pilot, an attorney, 
a college professor and a pediatrician. Apprehended by the French police 
when he was 21 years old, he served time in the French, Swedish and U.S. 
prison systems. After five years he was released on the condition that he 
would help the federal government, without remuneration, by teaching and 
assisting federal law enforcement agencies."
      While many aspects of the Spielberg movie were fictitious, the above 
is not. But why do we bring this up? Recently, Stephen had an opportunity 
to hear Mr. Abagnale speak and found it to be a very thought-provoking 
experience (if you are wondering how to book Mr. Abagnale for an event, 
http://www.kepplerassociates.com/speakers/abagnalefrank.asp will give you 
an idea of how much it will cost).
      Here is a man who has made his living dealing with deception, for the 
most part by helping the government, and his paying clients, to avoid being 
deceived. In some ways, Mr. Abagnale was one of the earliest criminal 
'hackers' to go straight and dedicate his life to catching (or thwarting) 
criminals. His speech began with amusing tales of his misspent youth but 
ended with deeply personal reflections on moral values, which he sees as 
the only truly effective antidote to crimes of fraud.
      Even as the audience was applauding a very professionally delivered 
speech, a disturbing thought was forming: When companies and government 
agencies refuse to listen to those they should, must they end up listening 
to people they shouldn't? After all, it is highly unlikely that nobody else 
but Frank Abagnale had considered the possibility of those frauds that he 
committed. We bet there were some folks around back then who had been 
warning banks about the various loopholes that he exploited.
      Our certainty on this point was reinforced by another speech, this 
one delivered during the recent residency portion of the Master of Science 
in Information Assurance degree that we have been teaching at Norwich 
University in Vermont. The speaker was Dr. Peter Neumann, someone who's 
been working with computers about as long as we've been alive and who has 
advised countless companies and government commissions on security. He is 
the author of the book, Computer-Related Risks (Addison-Wesley).
      Dr. Neumann's presentation documented a long list of security 
solutions that have been developed over the last thirty years, then 
promptly ignored; technologies and insights which, if properly implemented, 
would have gone, and still could go, a long way towards making information 
systems safe and dependable.
      Just in case you were under the impression that we've already 
developed safe and dependable information systems, try reading a few issues 
of Risks Digest (http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks). To give just one example, 
consider the electronic voting systems being rolled out in this country. 
Will they give us a reliable vote count? Dr. Neumann's considered 
conclusion is "Absolutely not." If you think that is bad news, then wait, 
it gets worse. Not only does Dr. Neumann make a convincing case for this 
conclusion, he has presented it to numerous agencies, committees, and 
officials at the federal, state and county level. To little or no avail.
      So, if November 2004 comes, and goes, and America is still not sure 
who its next President is going to be because a bunch of electronic votes 
are in dispute, at least we know that those responsible for the voting 
process will not be able to say "Nobody warned us." The warnings keep 
coming, but so do the misguided decisions to ignore them. Consider the 
report in NewsScan Daily, 6 August 2004, of the failure to prevent South 
Carolina's State Election Commission from buying electronic voting machines 
because they don't provide proof on paper that the vote was cast the way 
the voter intended. Objections were overruled by the attorney general 
because "the state's new machines give voters a chance to review and make 
changes to the ballots before finalizing their votes."
      Of course, that observation totally misses one of the main objections 
to a totally paperless ballot: the inability to provide an audit trail of 
votes cast. Any accusations of hacking or rigging of the machines are going 
to be very hard to investigate. Hanging chads were bad, but voting machines 
that rely on humans to design and implement secure software and hardware 
could be much worse, particularly if those humans continue to ignore the 
advice of the very humans who could possibly make it work. So as November 
draws nearer, here is a site you might want to check out: 
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/
      [Chey Cobb, CISSP, the author of "Cryptography for Dummies" and 
"Network Security for Dummies," is 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" and Chief Security 
Executive of STSN. He can be emailed as scobb at cobb dot com.]

PUBLISHING NOTE
      Yesterday we included in the Mailbag section a column our friend Mark 
Gibbs sent us but we forgot to note that it originally appeared in Network 
World, which of course owns the copyright. His editor there is John Dix.
      We are pleased to announce that we will soon begin publishing 
occasional columns written by Mark especially for NewsScan Daily.

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