NewsScan Daily, 1 December 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 1 December 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"  
       Cyberspace Activism
       'Virus-Throttle' Software From HP
       Lower Prices on Thin TVs (Buy Now!)
       Wireless in Philadelphia
       Microsoft in India
       Outsourcing Ultimately Good for Everyone

FEATURES           
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: Anne Hutchinson

CYBERSPACE ACTIVISM
     The German-based Web portal Lycos Europe is offering a screensaver
program that chokes spam servers by flooding them with junk traffic. The
company argues that what it's doing is perfectly legal, but former FCC chief
technologist David Farber comments: "You don't stop a bad thing by being bad
yourself. The idea of somebody coming and hitting you and you hitting back,
you both end up very hurt. It just aggravates an already serious problem."
And noted computer security expert Dorothy Denning, a professor of defense
analysis at the Navy Postgraduate School, points out that cyberspace
activism of the kind offered by Lycos Europe is likely to have only minimal
impact on spam because "the cost of adding extra bandwidth may be worth the
reward" that spammers get from their activities. She adds: "The interesting
question is whether or not that company [an anti-spam activist company]
might be liable under some law, and would probably be liable, certainly, at
least under a lawsuit by the spammers." (AP 30 Nov 2004)
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2004-11-30-lycos-attack-spam_x.htm?csp=34>

'VIRUS-THROTTLE' SOFTWARE FROM HP
     Software engineers at Hewlett-Packard are developing "virus-throttling"
software to slow the spread of viruses and worms on the Internet by
identifying suspicious behavior. HP chief technology officer Tony Redmond
says, "Any worm or virus that depends on its ability to spread itself will
be hurt by this technology." Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS
Institute, says the overall idea "makes sense," and adds, "It's an arms
race, not a simple war. I've been hearing people talk about the notion of
throttling for a long time, and it's a spectacular idea if HP can get it to
work." (Washington Post 30 Nov 2004)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23527-2004Nov30.html>

LOWER PRICES ON THIN TVs (BUY NOW!)
     A glut of liquid crystal display (LCD) flat-panel televisions will
cause prices to drop by as much as 30 percent over the course of 2005;
however, electronics retailers would just as soon not hear that kind of
talk, and Lee Simonson of Best Buy admits: "We do not want to talk about
predictions of price drops. We want people to buy now." According to a
survey by the Consumer Electronics Association, the most desired holiday
gift this season is a plasma TV, but Mike Fidler, an executive vice
president at Sony, says that LCD TV's will drop so much in price that plasma
will go away in three to five years.(AP/New York Times 29 Nov 2004)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/29/technology/29lcd.html>

WIRELESS IN PHILADELPHIA
     Verizon has struck a deal with the city of Philadelphia to provide
wireless Internet access as a municipal service. A spokeswoman for
Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street says the two parties "reached an
understanding that protects our interests and allows us to move forward with
the Wireless Philadelphia initiative." Under the Pennsylvania legislation,
any political subdivision would have to get the permission of the local
telephone company to provide a telecommunications service for a fee,
including broadband Internet, and if the company rejects the plan it would
have to offer a similar service within 14 months. (San Jose Mercury News 30
Nov 2004)
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/10305668.htm>

MICROSOFT IN INDIA
     Microsoft will open its sixth research center in Bangalore next month,
and focus its researchers on ways to create, store and search information in
multiple languages, technology for use in emerging markets, and other
specialties. Microsoft also currently operates research campuses in Beijing;
Cambridge, England; Redmond, WA; as well as San Francisco and Silicon
Valley. Microsoft research executive Rick Rashid says the company is adding
the new Indian campus to take advantage of the crop of promising computer
science students coming out of universities in that country. (AP/ USA Today
1 Dec 2004)
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/corporatenews/2004-12-01-ms-bangalore_x.htm>

OUTSOURCING ULTIMATELY GOOD FOR EVERYONE
     Espen Andersen, associate professor at the Norwegian School of
Management BI and research affiliate with The Concours Group, says in the
ACM's online publication Ubiquity: "In terms of labor economics, offshoring
is relatively unimportant -- it will affect only a very small proportion of
jobs, both in the USA and in Europe. I think McKinsey calculated that
something like 3 million jobs could disappear off shore during the next 5
years in the United States. I don't mean to be callous here, but 3 million
jobs in this context is essentially nothing! I have been told by labor
economists that the American economy loses between 25 and 30 million jobs
every year, but gains 27 to 32 million jobs. So 3 million jobs disappearing
over 5 years is nothing. Of course, it's traumatic to the people it happens
to, but in terms of the statistical picture and what actually happens to
these people, most of them get new jobs at no real financial downside,
except in the transition phase. And the economy gets better for it."
(Ubiquity 30 Nov 2004)
<http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/v5i37_andersen.html>

*****

FLASH CARD
     "What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity. We are all
formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly
-- that is the first law of nature." (Voltaire)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: ANNE HUTCHINSON
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the early colonial America religious
dissenter Anne Marbury Hutchinson (1591-1643), whose ideas provoked an
intense religious and political crisis in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in
the years 1636 to 1638.
     Initially a follower of prominent puritan clergyman John Cotton, she
and her husband, William Hutchinson, followed Cotton to Massachusetts in
1634. But once settled in the Bay Colony, she began to disagree with certain
tenets of orthodox Puritanism, and specifically she denied that mere
conformity with puritan laws and covenants was a sign of godliness. Instead,
she insisted that true godliness came from inner experience of the Holy
Spirit, and she declared that persons under such a "covenant of grace" might
commune directly with God. These views challenged the principles of
Massachusetts's religious and political system, which demanded the regular
observance of religious laws and acceptance of the Bible as the sole source
of those laws. 
     Hutchinson's ideas were branded as a form of Antinomianism, the heresy
of believing that moral law does not bind Christians. In 1936 a political
crisis arose when one of her supporters, Henry Vane, was elected governor.
An alarmed Puritan public succeeded the following year in returning John
Winthrop to the governorship, and under his leadership an ecclesiastical
synod condemned Hutchinson's views in August 1637.  She was brought to trial
in November of the same year and was found guilty of sedition and contempt.
     Excommunicated by the Boston church in March 1638, she was expelled
with her family and a small group of followers, whereupon she settled at
Pocasset (now Portsmouth, R.I.). There, with the assistance of a sympathetic
Roger Williams, they purchased land from the Indians. In 1642, however,
quarrels with other Rhode Island settlers forced Hutchinson to move to
Pelham Bay, N.Y., where in 1643 she and all her children save one were
massacred by hostile Indians, an event regarded by some in Massachusetts as
a manifestation of divine judgment.
     Born Anne Marbury in England, Hutchinson was the daughter of a
clergyman silenced for preaching against the established Church of England.
Although without formal education, she grew up learning much by listening to
her father and his friends discuss religion and government. At 21 she
married William Hutchinson, her childhood sweetheart, with whom she would
have 14 children. 
     Active in religious affairs, she traveled frequently to hear John
Cotton preach. In 1633 Cotton was forced to leave England because of his
Puritan sympathies. With Hutchinson's eldest son, Edward, he fled to New
England. The Hutchinsons with their other children followed the next year
and settled in Boston, where she began to hold regular religious meetings in
her home. Her brilliance and biblical knowledge attracted large numbers of
people, including leading merchants and many ministers. At first discussion
centered on reviewing, sometimes harshly, recent sermons, but soon the
meetings became opportunities for Hutchinson to expound the theological
views, which ultimately led to her downfall.

[To find a library copy of "Divine Rebel," a biography of Hutchinson, visit
RLG's RedLightGreen.com:
<http://www.redlightgreen.com/ucwprod/servlet/ucw.servlets.UCWController?ACTION=EDITION&WORKID=26637337&>
-- or to purchase a copy of his "Bombay Lost and Found" go to:
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0030558468/newsscancom/ref=nosim>
Note: We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy
programs.]

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