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

NewsScan Daily, 27 October 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        E-Voting Companies Divulge *Some* Software Code
        Spammers Face Criminal Penalties in Virginia Trial
        Madison Avenue Wakes Up to Web Logs
        Work MP3s Are a $AU60M Problem
        XM Offers Satellite Radio in the Palm of Your Hand
        Landlines Yield to Mobiles In India

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Horace Greeley
        Safe & Sound in the Cyber Age: Florida's ID Theft Kit

E-VOTING COMPANIES DIVULGE *SOME* SOFTWARE CODE
      Electronic voting equipment makers Diebold Election Systems, Election 
Systems & Software, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia Voting Systems have agreed 
to submit millions of lines of software code to the National Software 
Reference Library, but have refused to include their most valuable data -- 
their proprietary source code. They also say they might not provide the 
library with copies of software patches and updates. The companies acted at 
the request of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, whose chairman 
noted that although the data submitted was far from complete, he hoped the 
companies' ongoing submissions would eventually result in making election 
software more transparent. A number of scientists have called for "open 
source" voting software that could be independently verified, but many 
computer security experts remain pessimistic because no technology exists 
today that would allow an election official who suspects fraud to check 
software code on a voting machine and compare with the code stored in the 
library. Avi Rubin, technical director of the Johns Hopkins Information 
Security Institute, called the code-sharing program "meaningless." (AP 27 
Oct 2004)
<http://apnews.excite.com/article/20041027/D85VOSTG1.html>

SPAMMERS FACE CRIMINAL PENALTIES IN VIRGINIA TRIAL
      Virginia prosecutors have brought to trial three North Carolina 
defendants in what's being billed as the nation's first felony anti-spam 
case. The Virginia law toughening penalties for sending junk e-mail took 
effect last year; if convicted, each defendant could face up to 15 years in 
prison and $2,500 in fines. The prosecutors allege the defendants used 
falsified or forged return Internet addresses to send bulk e-mail hawking 
penny stocks and work-at-home schemes through a server in Loudon County, 
Virginia, where America Online is headquartered. The defense attorneys have 
argued their clients were simply "marketing via the Internet," which "may 
be annoying to you. It is not a crime." However, anti-spam activists say 
the prosecution is a step in the right direction. Spammers "are folks who 
are fairly comfortable with playing … on the fringes of legitimacy and 
reality," says the general counsel for the Coalition Against Unsolicited 
Commercial E-mail. "But if you can attach serious jail time, they would 
think twice." (Washington Post 27 Oct 2004)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A611-2004Oct26.html>

MADISON AVENUE WAKES UP TO WEB LOGS
      Advertising agencies and communications professionals are testing the 
effectiveness of using blogs to create forums for discussion about ideas 
within their industries, with topics ranging from video game marketing to 
the art of client service. However, the biggest agencies are still holding 
out, noting that the potential risks still outweigh the benefits. "Blogs 
are in fashion, and it is easy to hop on the bandwagon and say that every 
company should have one," says an executive with Deutsch, a unit of the 
Interpublic Group of Companies. "The questions any smart marketer should be 
asking are, 'Does this provide a platform to connect with their most 
relevant audiences and how will this address business objectives?' That's 
not to say we would never enter blogland, but there is a fine line between 
being timely, topical and keeping current while making sure that we are 
doing what's best for our business long term." The biggest risk, say many 
experts, is an uncontrolled message slipping out and damaging the company. 
But it's clear that as blogging evolves into a corporate tool, it's also 
losing those qualities that made it such a hit in the first place: 
attitude, irreverence and a penchant for kicking up a ruckus. (New York 
Times 27 Oct 2004)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/business/media/27adco.html>

WORK MP3s ARE A $AU60M PROBLEM
      Office workers downloading files to build music and video collections 
cost Australian businesses $AU60 million a year, a new survey has found. 
Exinda Networks, a Melbourne-based supplier of network management and 
monitoring systems, collated recent data from the Australian Bureau of 
Statistics and one of the nation's largest private Internet service 
providers, covering around 10,000 online users. Australian businesses, 
which spend a total of $AU450 million a year in Internet costs, were 
forking out an estimated $AU4.9 million a month for employees' music and 
video files, the study found. This was the equivalent of one million MP3 
files daily and does not include lost productivity costs. (The Australian 
25 Oct 2004) rec'd from John Lamp
<http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,11178884%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html>

XM OFFERS SATELLITE RADIO IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND
      XM Satellite has taken the wraps off the Delphi MyFi, a handheld 
portable version of its satellite radio device, which comes with a 
rechargeable battery, a built-in antenna and on-board flash memory that 
enables users to pause and record more than five hours of XM programming. 
The Delphi MyFi will hit the shelves in time for the holiday shopping 
season, priced at $350. (Reuters/CNet 27 Oct 2004)
<http://news.com.com/XM+introduces+portable+satellite+radio/2100-1041_3-5428467.html>

LANDLINES YIELD TO MOBILES IN INDIA
      Mobile phone users have outstripped traditional landline connections 
in India, according to the industry, marking a major lifestyle and 
communications milestone for the rapidly changing country. A survey 
conducted by India's leading telecoms magazine, Voice and Data, found 45 
million people possess mobile phones in India compared to 44 million who 
have landlines. "It took landline phone subscriptions 50 years to get to 
the 40-million-mark while mobile phones have touched it in nine years and 
four months. Mobile phones have created a complete culture change in 
communication," says the magazine's senior assistant editor, Pravin 
Prashant. (The Age 25 Oct 2004) rec'd from John Lamp
<http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/25/1098667675148.html>

*****

FLASH CARD
      "I read the newspaper avidly. It is my one form of continuous 
fiction." (Aneurin Bevan)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: HORACE GREELEY
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the American newspaper editor Horace 
Greeley (1811-1872), who founded the influential New York Tribune.
      Greeley was an influential force in national affairs in the critical 
years before and during the Civil War, and his writings and remarks were 
widely quoted. (The phrase "Go West, young man" became a byword after he 
popularized it as his advice to New York City's unemployed.)
      Always forceful and outspoken in his opinions, Greeley championed 
equality for women in employment and education and fought unceasingly 
against the expansion of slavery into newly created states. He also 
condemned monopolies, the use of liquor and tobacco, capital punishment, 
and the theater. The city of Greeley, Colorado, is named for him because it 
was the site of a cooperative community he founded in 1870.
      Greeley was born poor in Amherst, New Hampshire. At age 15 he became 
an apprentice in a Vermont newspaper office, later moving to New York City, 
where, in 1833, he helped found the short-lived Morning Post, the first 
two-cent daily paper. Ten years later, after several other publishing 
ventures he founded the immediately successful Herald Tribune. With heavy 
emphasis on serious news and wide-ranging opinion columns, the Tribune soon 
dominated American journalism and made Greeley into a household name.
      Obsessed with politics all his life, Greeley frequently sought, but 
rarely won, public office. He served a brief term in Congress, filling a 
vacancy, and was twice an unsuccessful candidate for the Senate and twice 
for the House. Long a loyal Whig, Greeley joined the newly formed 
Republican Party and helped nominate and elect Abraham Lincoln. During the 
Civil War, however, Greeley took several unpopular stands, and he and his 
newspaper became the target of mob attacks during the bloody New York draft 
riots of 1863. After the war, Greeley favored universal amnesty, and even 
signed a bail bond for the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis.
      A supporter of Grant when the Union general was first elected 
president, Greeley ran against Grant as the candidate of those who formed 
themselves into the Liberal Republican party, but Greeley carried only six 
states to Grant's 31. Exhausted by the campaign and from having to care for 
his terminally ill wife, Greeley collapsed, became demented, and died 
himself within a few weeks. Ironically, among the dignitaries in the huge 
crowds attending his funeral in New York was President Grant.
                            ***
[To find a library copy of Greeley's "Overland Journey From New York To San 
Francisco In The Summer Of 1859" visit RLG's RedLightGreen.com: 
<http://www.redlightgreen.com/ucwprod/servlet/ucw.servlets.UCWController?ACTION=EDITION&WORKID=13835439&> 
-- or to purchase the book through Amazon visit: 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0803270798/newsscancom/ref=nosim>. 
Note: We donate all revenue from our recommendations to adult literacy 
programs.]

SAFE & SOUND IN THE CYBER AGE: FLORIDA'S ID THEFT KIT
                              (by Chey Cobb & Stephen Cobb)
                                                    ***
      A few years ago, when the dot com bubble was still bubbling, 
legislators in the State of Florida got the 'technology bug' and mandated 
that all Florida counties put all public records on 'The Web.' We have no 
idea if the companies that make the hardware and software used to implement 
the mandate handed out campaign contributions to encourage this technology 
leap. But a lot of money has been spent on such technology in the years 
since, from dozens of high speed scanners to terabytes of storage and 
thousands of lines of Web code.
      The result? A large group of people, and even the country as a whole, 
is probably a lot less safe than it used to be. To understand why, take a 
look at a Web page we have put up to demonstrate: 
<http://www.privacyforbusiness.com/example1.htm>
      The link on the right shows you a prime example of what can happen 
when people don't fully grasp the relationship between privacy, technology, 
and human nature. Anyone on the planet with an Internet connection can now 
find intensely personal details about individuals who have lived in, or 
passed through, Florida.
      One such class of persons is elderly folk whose relatives have filed 
power of attorney (these records sometimes include banking data along with 
SSN and signature). Another worrying class of victims is U.S. military 
personnel. You can find out what their specialties are, their Social 
Security Numbers, addresses, relatives, signature, and so forth.
      The example we give is one of these, from Duval County, the most 
populous county in Florida. What you will see is the record as it appears 
on the Web, except that we added red ink to blot out key portions of the 
name of this particular person. If you go to the Duval County Web site, 
from any country in the world, you can find thousands of records just like 
this, with the name and SSN in place, NOT crossed out. Many of these people 
are not Florida residents, they just happen to have left the service while 
in Florida.
      The legislators who mandated this state of affairs were not alone in 
their failure to realize that "The Web" is the same "World Wide Web" you 
can access from anywhere, from Boca Raton to Bulgaria, Tampa Bay to 
Turkistan. A number of federal government agencies took the same leap off 
the cliff of commonsense in their eagerness to save money by automating 
public access to information. The basic mistake was to think of the 
Internet as the American public. Perhaps their Internet bubble was a Venn 
diagram in which the set of all U.S. citizens neatly coincided with the set 
of all Internet users. In the very early days of the Internet that might 
have been forgivable, but these days, when the evening news routinely pulls 
its footage from Islamic fundamentalist Web sites, you would think we'd all 
be a bit wiser. Apparently not.
      Consider how you get to these records, many of which are the perfect 
starting point for the crime of identity theft. You would think that you 
would need to know a specific person's name to find public records 
pertaining to them. But no, in Duval County you can simply ask to see all 
records of a particular type within a valid date range. In other counties 
you can't browse all records at once, but a very lame search mechanism lets 
you enter a single letter for a last name, like "A," and thus browse all 
persons whose name begins with "A," from Aarnem to Aziz. At some sites, 
including Duval, you don't even need a document viewer like Acrobat because 
the county provides one for you.
      Needless to say, we think this type of access to people's private 
information is wrong. Our government does not have the right to publish to 
the world our Social Security Numbers, signatures, and other personal 
details (and this doesn't even get into the whole issue of Florida juvenile 
records wrongly placed in the public domain). Things need to be changed. If 
anyone would like to contact us about efforts to effect changes we will try 
to do what we can to help.
      What sort of changes are needed? Well, expunging all Social Security 
Numbers would be a start, but even easier would be the requirement that you 
need to know the name of the person whose public records you are seeking. 
And personally, we see no reason for military discharge papers to be made 
available at the county level. Why not make that a responsibility of the 
branch of the armed services in which the person served?
      In the broader scheme of things Americans need to do some serious 
thinking about what 'public record' means. Stephen is sitting in a bar in 
Amsterdam right now, looking at military service records of people from 
Alabama to Wyoming. He's also viewing aerial photographs of properties in 
our Florida neighborhood, then pulling up the names and addresses of the 
owners, seeing what they paid for their homes and if their taxes are 
current. Does he have a right to do that? From there? And what about the 
fundamentalist who might be sitting next to him in that bar?
      [Chey Cobb, CISSP, the author of "Cryptography for Dummies" and 
"Network Security for Dummies," is a former senior technical security 
advisor to the NRO. Her email is chey at aug dot com. Stephen Cobb, CISSP, 
is the author of "Privacy for Business" and Chief Security Executive of 
STSN. His email is scobb at cobb dot com.]

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