NewsScan Daily, 31 January 2005 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 31 January 2005 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Committee Proposes Extending Telecom Tax
        Negroponte Touts $100 Laptop
        Reading Is Hard -- For Computers
        Maxed Out on WiMax Hype?
        Smart Cars Make Smart Business Sense

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Elijah Ben Solomon
        Safe & Sound in the Cyber Age

COMMITTEE PROPOSES EXTENDING TELECOM TAX
      The Joint Committee on Taxation shook up the high-tech world recently 
with its suggestion that the 3% telecommunications tax (levied originally 
in 1898 on traditional phone service to pay for the Spanish-American War) 
could be revised to cover "all data communications services to end users," 
including broadband, dialup, fiber, cable modems, cellular and DSL links. 
The committee report lists three telecom tax options, the most radical of 
which would cover all data communications. Another option would extend the 
excise tax to cell phones and perhaps VoIP, and the third would clearly 
target VoIP, with the report noting: "As voice phone service migrates to 
using Internet Protocol, there may be no way to distinguish 'packets' of 
voice and 'packets' of data." The proposal has met with strong criticism 
from technology groups. "We need to be careful in trying to stretch a 
taxation system this old to be a catchall for all modern technology. We 
need to avoid starting down a path of overtaxing nascent forms of 
communication," warned Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for 
Competitive Technology. (CNet News.com 28 Jan 2005)
<http://news.com.com/Congress+proposes+tax+on+all+Net%2C+data+connections/2100-1028_3-5555385.html>

NEGROPONTE TOUTS $100 LAPTOP
      MIT Media Lab chief Nicholas Negroponte was prowling the halls of 
last week's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, showing off his 
latest inspiration -- a mock-up of a $100 laptop computer. Negroponte's 
device, which runs on free Linux software, derives much of its 
affordability through an innovative idea for lowering the cost of its 
display to a reasonable $25 or less. The tentlike pop-up display uses 
technology now found in rear-projection televisions in conjunction with an 
LED light source. Negroponte says he's already received initial backing 
from Advanced Micro Devices and is in discussions with Google, Motorola, 
News Corp. and Samsung for support. Meanwhile, Advanced Micro CEO Hector de 
J. Ruiz brought his own low-cost concept computer to the meeting -- the 
$185 Personal Internet Communicator, which features a stripped down version 
of Windows and comes sans monitor or fan. Both men see the low-cost 
computer as the answer to developing countries' increasing demand for 
technology, and Negroponte says he's confident his laptop could find a 
ready market as early as 2006. "China is important because there are 220 
million students," he notes. (New York Times 31 Jan 2005)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/31/technology/31newcon.html>

READING IS HARD -- FOR COMPUTERS
      Two artificial intelligence experts at Rensselaer Polytechnic 
Institute are endeavoring to create a computer that can read and learn at a 
sophisticated level, using algorithms that enable their 
"Poised-for-Learning" machine to convert sentences into formal logic. An 
additional set of algorithms would then be required to enable the machine 
to use the information it takes in to "reason" and "learn."  "In order to 
succeed, we'll need systems that can remember where they've been and what 
they've seen and improve themselves over time," says Ronald Brachman, 
director of DARPA's Information Processing Technology Office, which is 
funding the research. RPI professor Selmer Bringsjord envisions future 
robots that can process information in real time, either by reading or 
listening to spoken instructions. Once a computer has absorbed all the 
relevant data on the culture, history and geography of an area, a military 
commander could say, "Here's the current situation in Fallujah. Go scout it 
out." Meanwhile, experts acknowledge that the goal of a "reading" computer 
is a long way off. Boris Katz of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab says: 
"Natural language is very ambiguous… I'm still looking for that common 
sense these 3-year-olds have. And we don't have it yet [in computers]." (AP 
31 Jan 2005)
<http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050131/D87V257O0.html>

MAXED OUT ON WIMAX HYPE?
      To listen to enthusiastic proponents, you might think that WiMax -- a 
longer-distance version of WiFi wireless technology -- is poised to take 
over the world, but you'd be wrong. The actual number of WiMax products on 
the market is… zero. That's because the WiMax Forum, a standards body that 
oversees technology development in order to ensure that gear from different 
vendors works together, has yet to certify its first device. And once they 
hit the market, WiMax devices won't be competitive in urban markets, where 
they'll be far more expensive than cable or DSL, and they'll be too pricey 
for the developing world, where mobile phone networks will provide a 
cheaper alternative for connecting remote villages. One market research 
expert says the technology likely will find its biggest market among 
telecom companies serving rural areas, that want to use it to plug holes in 
their coverage. (The Economist 27 Jan 2005)
<http://www.economist.com>

SMART CARS MAKE SMART BUSINESS SENSE
      It used to be that only top-of-the-line models featured all the 
extras, such as video players and GPS, but backseat entertainment consoles, 
navigation systems and wireless technologies will be offered as standard 
equipment on high-volume vehicles by almost 75% of the 38 carmakers polled 
in a recent survey by the Telematics Research Group. "It's a great way for 
them to make a bigger margin," says Telematics principal analyst Phil 
Magney. But in addition to a little extra profit, adding intelligence to 
vehicles is also a good means of making more sensible use of the typical 
car's latent computer power. "It's cheaper for the car's manufacturers to 
give you the full, top-of-the-line, deluxe engine and cut it back a bit 
with software," says Accenture research director Martin Illsley. That means 
instead of different models featuring different engines with different 
performance levels, engine management software would determine how each 
vehicle performs. Parents might be interested in toning down vehicle 
performance while their teenager is behind the wheel, while car rental 
companies like the idea of a fleet of cars whose performance can be 
tailored according to how much customers pay -- with the swipe of a credit 
card, drivers could turn their stodgy rental into a roaring roadster. (BBC 
News 31 Jan 2005)
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4222357.stm>

*****

FLASH CARD
      "For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life."  (William 
Blake)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: ELIJAH BEN SOLOMON
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Jewish scholar and spiritual 
leader Elijah ben Solomon (1720-1797), whose scholarship embraced mastery 
of every field of study in the Jewish literature up to his own time.
      Born in Sielec, Lithuania, into a long line of scholars, Elijah 
traveled among the Jewish communities of Poland and Germany in 1740-45 and 
then settled in Vilna, which was the cultural center of eastern European 
Jewry. There he lived as a recluse, devoting himself to study and prayer. 
By the time he was 30 his reputation as a scholar had spread throughout the 
Jewish world, and as a mark of respect they began calling him the Gaon of 
Vilna, the title Gaon being an ancient Hebrew honorific term for "majesty."
      Although he refused to act as a rabbi in his own community, Elijah 
was one of the first authoritative critics of rabbinical texts. He prepared 
commentaries on the Talmud and on Hebrew classics, introducing the methods 
of textual criticism in the study of the Bible and the Talmud. He also 
broadened Jewish learning to include the natural sciences, and asserted 
that a complete understanding of Jewish law and literature required the 
study of mathematics, astronomy, geography, botany and zoology. He 
encouraged translations of works on these subjects into Hebrew and made his 
own contribution by writing a Hebrew grammar as well as treatises on 
mathematics and astronomy.
      Elijah is sometimes remembered in a less than favorable light for his 
strenuous opposition to the spread of Hasidism among the Jewish population. 
Hasidism was a pietistic mystical movement that he considered superstitious 
and unscholarly, deserving the strongest condemnation and rejection by the 
Jewish community.  His opposition succeeded in temporarily checking the 
movement's spread in Lithuania.
      Elijah's writings were published posthumously and include 
commentaries and numerous annotations on the Bible, Talmud, Midrash, and 
other works. One of his best-known books is "The Village Gaon Views Life," 
cited below.

[To find a library copy Solomon's "The Village Gaon Views Life," visit 
RLG's RedLightGreen service at 
<http://www.redlightgreen.com/ucwprod/servlet/ucw.servlets.UCWController?ACTION=EDITION&WORKID=12058664&> 
-- or to purchase a copy go to: 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007CC4G4/newsscancom/ref=nosim> 
Note: We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy 
programs.]

SAFE & SOUND IN THE CYBERAGE
      [By Stephen Cobb and Chey Cobb, Who Present Their Annual Lament]
                          ***
      As the first month of 2005 draws to a close it is time to sound our 
annual alarm over the state of Internet decay. At the beginning of 2003 we 
wrote that the Internet "exists at the whim of those who know how to 
destroy it." We also said that "Our society is a lot more dependent on the 
Internet than anyone has so far been prepared to admit."
      Almost simultaneously, but unbeknownst to us, a certain federal 
government employee by the name of Richard Clarke, not widely known outside 
of Washington at that time, was drafting his resignation letter as he 
prepared to quit as head of cybersecurity for the Bush administration. In 
his letter Clarke said, "As long as we have vulnerabilities in cyberspace 
and as long as America has enemies, we are at risk of the two coming 
together to severely damage our great country. We cannot assume that the 
past level of damage is in any way indicative of what could happen in the 
future."
      A year later, we felt so strongly about this issue, and the 
continuing lack of attention it was receiving, that we reiterated our 
warnings in both this column and a press release, pointing out that profits 
and productivity gains created by the use of email and Web sites could be 
lost unless there was rapid and widespread deployment of improved 
technology to defeat these threats.
      We were particularly frustrated by "the willingness of major 
stakeholders, such as the large software, hardware, and network service 
provider companies, to sit around planning how to beat each other in the 
marketplace even as the marketplace threatens to disappear from beneath 
their feet." We concluded that "There has to be concerted, cooperative 
action, now. The alternative is, at best, a reduction in growth rates for 
activities like online banking and shopping; at worst, wholesale consumer 
defection will occur, along with a damaging loss of profits and 
productivity gains for companies, government, and the economy as a whole."
      Not everyone agreed. Our warning was criticized as "shrill and 
overzealous." But our prediction that, driven by a rising tide of spam and 
malicious code, 2004 would be the worst year ever for security incidents 
and privacy breaches, proved sadly correct. While 2004 brought numerous 
announcements of multi-vendor cooperation on security issues, as well as 
some serious consolidation among security companies, life for many people 
attempting to use Internet-connected computers continued to get worse.
      We don't just base this on our own experience, the many hours we 
spent in 2004 helping people to reclaim their computers from viruses, spam, 
and adware. Consider the findings of a survey conducted in January of 2005 
by Osterman Research which found that, thanks to the proliferation of spam, 
spyware, and related problems, "44 percent of computer users have reduced 
their use of e-mail and the Internet in the last 12 months." Perennial 
optimists may point out that 56 percent of the 241 respondents said they 
had not reduced their usage of e-mail and Internet, but that is hardly 
enough to maintain the growth rates upon which so many business models are 
built these days, from banking to retailing, manufacturing to transportation.
      January of 2005 also brought the first mainstream media article that 
dared to advance the claim, heretofore heretical in most media 
circles--interwoven as they are with so many of the business models now at 
risk--that a significant number of people are abandoning the Internet. 
Penned by Joseph Menn, the article appeared in the LA Times on January 14 
under this headline: "No More Internet for Them: Fed up over problems 
stemming from viruses and spyware, some computer users are giving up or 
curbing their use of the Web."
      Mr. Menn had no problem finding people willing to talk to him about 
why they given up on the Net. Some of these people had been online for many 
years but 2004 was the last straw. Menn observed that, "A small but growing 
number of frustrated computer owners are...giving up or cutting back their 
use of the Internet, especially at home, where no corporate tech support 
team will ride to their rescue. Instead of making life easier -- the 
essential promise of technologies since the steam engine -- the home PC of 
late has made some users feel stupid, endangered or just hassled beyond 
reason."
      We were certainly been made to feel stupid on more than one occasion 
in 2004, often by systems that had become so badly infected that, after 
hours of trying to reclaim them, we ended up reformatting them. And we 
heard this scenario repeated time and again in conversations with friends 
and colleagues, including the CIO of one of the country's largest brokerage 
firms who, one fateful Friday night, agreed to help his neighbor fix the 
family computer. He started cleaning up the machine on Saturday morning, 
but by Sunday afternoon he threw in the towel. One piece of malicious code 
just couldn't be removed. So he reformatted the machine, all the while 
trying to explain to his neighbor why he, a CIO, didn't know how to fix 
this sort of thing.
      So, our prediction for 2005? The Internet defection trend will 
increase and make front page news. More people will buy Apple Macs in the 
hope of avoiding the problems that beset Windows-based machines, but Macs 
too will be targeted by viruses, worms, adware, and phishing attacks. And 
industry leaders will talk more loudly about the need for better user 
education as they attempt to prevent any of the blame for the current state 
of affairs from sticking to their brands.
      [Chey Cobb, CISSP, wrote "Network Security for Dummies" and has 
provided computer security advice to numerous intelligence agencies. Her 
e-mail address is chey at soteira dot org. Stephen Cobb, CISSP, wrote 
"Privacy for Business" and helped launch several successful security 
companies. He can be reached as scobb at cobb dot com.]

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