NewsScan Daily, 21 Jul 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 21 Jul 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Webvan Founder Launches Online Magazine Archive
        P2P Caching Puts ISPs at Risk for Copyright Violation
        E-Mail Evidence in Kmart Case
        Smile, You're on Closed Circuit TV
        WozNet: Apple Cofounder Comes Blazing Back
        Adieu to 'E-Mail'?

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About: Why Do Teaching Methods Change So Slowly?
        Safe & Sound in the Cyber Age With Chey & Stephen Cobb

WEBVAN FOUNDER LAUNCHES ONLINE MAGAZINE ARCHIVE
Webvan founder Louis Borders is launching an online newsstand that makes 
back issues of 140+ magazines available for browsing and downloading for a 
flat fee of $4.95 a month. KeepMedia, as the new venture's called, will 
post issues only after they expire on the newsstand in order to avoid 
cannibalizing print sales. Borders, who also co-founded Borders Books, says 
he believes that online users are finally changing their "information must 
be free" attitude: "We feel we're right on the cusp" of a mass audience 
willing to pay for digital content, he says. In 2000, media entrepreneur 
Steven Brill launched a similar effort called Contentville, which charged 
users a couple of dollars to download articles from more than 600 
magazines. Brill's operation burned through $6 million to $8 million before 
shutting its doors in 2001, but he says the concept is still valid. "The 
Internet and electronic delivery is far and away the best way to do it. 
Someone will get this right." (Wall Street Journal 21 Jul 2003)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105873917397247200,00.html (sub req'd)

P2P CACHING PUTS ISPs AT RISK FOR COPYRIGHT VIOLATION
Swedish firm Joltid is marketing its PeerCache technology, which is 
designed to ease network traffic gridlock by caching frequently traded 
digital files within file-swapping systems. The software, which has been 
licensed by three major European ISPs, is built to work with FastTrack, one 
of the most popular P2P protocols which forms the basis for applications 
such as Kazaa and iMesh. PeerCache plugs into the ISP network and 
temporarily caches FastTrack P2P traffic, easing the bandwidth crunch. 
However, the technology is raising the hackles of the recording industry, 
which warns that even temporarily storing copyright files could make ISPs 
accomplices in illegal file trading. "Just using the word 'caching' doesn't 
mean that the service is automatically exempt from copyright liability," 
says the IFPI, the international counterpart to the U.S.'s RIAA. Meanwhile, 
Joltid founder Niklas Zennstrom, who co-founded Kazaa, maintains that 
European Union laws allow ISPs to temporarily cache traffic on their 
servers regardless of the file's legal status. "One should bear in mind 
that [whether] an ISP is caching a file or not does not make the file more 
or less available for end users. It only impacts the load on the ISP's 
network. Thus, by caching P2P traffic, ISPs are not encouraging or 
[discouraging] users to download files. It is just a way for the ISP to 
organize their network." Zennstrom says PeerCache is being tested by a 
number of European ISPs. (CNet News.com 18 Jul 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-1027508.html?tag=fd_top

E-MAIL EVIDENCE IN KMART CASE
Lawyers representing two former Kmart Corp. executives facing federal 
securities fraud charges have petitioned a judge to let them have a copy of 
a government e-mail message pertaining to the case. One of the lawyers says 
he accidentally discovered the message in question, which was sent from the 
branch chief of the Security & Exchange Commission's enforcement division 
and which he says raises questions about the strength of the case. Kmart 
emerged from bankruptcy in May and plans to return to profitability in 
2004. (AP/Washington Post 21 Jul 2003)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22184-2003Jul21.html

SMILE, YOU'RE ON CLOSED CIRCUIT TV
In Cambridge, England, RFID technology will cause a CCTV camera to take a 
photo of anyone taking a package of Gillette Mach3 razorblades from the 
shelves of supermarket chain Tesco Ltd.; a second camera then takes a 
picture at the checkout and security staff then compare the two images. 
"Customers know that there are CCTV cameras in the store," said a spokesman 
for Tesco, and says that the purpose of the pilot project is to provide 
stock information rather than provide security. However, the manager of the 
Cambridge store says he has shown the police photos of a shoplifter. Civil 
libertarians says that the so-called "spy chips" are an invasion of 
consumers' privacy, but manufacturers point out that the chips can be 
disabled simply by having the data erased at checkout when a consumer 
leaves the store. (The Guardian (UK) 19 Jul 2003)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1001211,00.html

WOZNET: APPLE COFOUNDER COMES BLAZING BACK
Beginning with an interest in finding a way to track his lost dogs, Apple 
co-founder Steve Wozniak developed location-monitoring technology using 
electronic tags and designed to help people keep track of their animals, 
children or property. The new company, Wheels of Zeus, is touting WozNet as 
a simple and inexpensive wireless network that uses radio signals and 
global positioning satellite data to keep track of a cluster of inexpensive 
tags within a one- or two-mile radius of each base station. Its low-power 
network will complement rather than compete with other wireless 
technologies such as radio-frequency I.D. tags used in stores and factories 
and higher speed Wi-Fi and cellular data networks. WozNet, with data rates 
of no more than 20,000 bps, will be able to transmit a very small amount of 
digital information even through environments subject to radio 
interference, and will be able to location information from global 
positioning system (GPS) satellites. (New York Times 21 Jul 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/07/21/technology/21ZEUS.html

ADIEU TO 'E-MAIL'?
France's Culture Ministry has announced a ban on the use of the word 
"e-mail" in all government ministries, publications or Web sites and is 
encouraging French Internet users to adopt the term "courriel" when 
referring to electronic mail. Courriel is derived from "courrier 
electronique" -- electronic mail -- and, according to the General 
Commission on Terminology and Neology, the term is "broadly used in the 
press and competes advantageously with the borrowed 'mail' in English." 
However, some Internet industry experts disagree with that assessment: "The 
word 'courriel' is not at all actively used… Protecting the language is 
normal, but e-mail's so assimilated now that no one thinks of it as 
American," says Marie-Christine Levet, president of French ISP Club 
Internet, who adds that her company has no plans to switch its terminology. 
(AP 19 Jul 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030719/D7SCS9201.html

*****

FLASH CARD
      "None but myself ever did me any harm. I was, I may say, the only 
enemy to myself: my own projects, that expedition to Moscow, and the 
accidents which happened there, were the causes of my fall. I must say, 
though, that those who failed to oppose me, who readily agreed with me, 
accepted all my views, and yielded easily to my opinions, were those who 
did me the most injury, and were my worst enemies, because, by surrendering 
to me so easily, they encouraged me to go too far... I was then too 
powerful for any man, except myself, to injure me." (Napoleon Bonaparte)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: WHY DO TEACHING METHODS CHANGE SO SLOWLY?
      Wondering, "How can we account for the persistence of a mode of 
teaching that has so many critics, so many obvious faults?" author Parker 
J. Palmer explains:
      "Some say that lecturing, assigning readings, and giving tests is 
simply the easiest way to teach, and that teachers (like everyone else) 
will take the line of least resistance. Others argue that mass education 
has forced this method upon us: how else do you teach a class of two 
hundred except with managerial techniques? Still others blame educational 
economics, pointing out that our underfunded schools are unable to buy the 
time or staff necessary for more personal and interactive modes of teaching 
and learning.
      "All of these explanations are factual and reasonable, but nothing in 
history would ever have changed if facts and reasons could not be overcome. 
Laziness, conceptions of efficiency, and budgets are not forced upon us by 
cosmic superpowers. They are all matters of choice, and we always have the 
freedom to choose otherwise. Why do we not choose otherwise? Why does this 
pedagogy persist?
      "The critics have come closer to the answer by suggesting that this 
style of teaching persists because it gives teachers power. With power 
comes security: the security of controlling the classroom agenda, of 
avoiding serious challenges to one's authority, of evading the 
embarrassment of getting lost in territory where one does not know the way 
home. Teachers are unlikely to relinquish such power even in the face of 
students who hunger for another way to learn.
      "But that is only half the story. Students themselves cling to the 
conventional pedagogy because it gives them security, too, a fact well 
known by teachers who have tried more participatory modes of teaching. When 
a teacher tries to share the power, to give students more responsibility 
for their own education, students get skittish and cynical. They complain 
that the teacher is not earning his or her pay, and they subvert the 
experiment by noncooperation. Many students prefer to have their learning 
boxed and tied, and when they are invited into a more creative role they 
flee in fear.
      "The conventional pedagogy persists because it conveys a view of 
reality that simplifies our lives. By this view, we and our world become 
objects to be lined up, counted, organized and owned, rather than a 
community of selves and spirits related to each other in a complex web of 
accountability called 'truth.' The conventional pedagogy pretends to give 
us mastery over the world, relieving us of the need for mutual 
vulnerability that the new epistemologies, and truth itself, imply."
                      ***
See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060664517/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for  "To Know as We Are Known" by Parker J. Palmer -- or look for it in 
your favorite library. (We donate all revenue from our book recommendations 
to adult literacy programs.)

SAFE & SOUND IN THE CYBER AGE WITH CHEY & STEPHEN COBB
         This week the Cobbs deal in their security column with Phishers 
and Fakers:
                    YOU SAY PHISHER, I SAY FAKER
         One of the many things that we, Chey and Stephen, have in common 
is that we both studied Latin in school; not the most romantic of Romance 
languages perhaps, but some phrases do roll off the tongue, like 
"praemunitas, praemonitas," which also sounds good in English as 
"forewarned is forearmed."
      "Forewarned" is exactly what NewsScan readers have been, since April, 
at least with respect to faked or bogus email. These are intentionally 
deceptive messages which seek to perpetrate a variety of frauds. The most 
common of these frauds is the harvesting of personal data such as financial 
account details. This fraud is accomplished by directing message recipients 
to Web sites that "spoof" the look of well-known brands and dupe the 
visitor into providing said data. The perpetrators can then use the data to 
access the individual's account or proceed to steal the identity of the victim.
      Nearly three months after our column in NewsScan, the topic is 
finally making headlines in the mainstream press, as readers of the July 8 
NewsScan will have noted, specifically a USA Today article about so-called 
"phisher" sites that "fish" for personal data such as credit card numbers. 
This was followed a week later by a widely reported warning to companies 
about "brand spoofing" from the anti-spam firm SurfControl. This warning 
reiterated advice we have been giving to our clients for many years:
      * Educate your customers (and your employees) so they know that email 
which asks for personal information (user name, password, social security 
or credit card number) is suspicious and should be reported to the 
appropriate security officer.
      * Urge customers (and employees) not to open suspicious email and 
never click on Web site links in suspicious messages.
      * Monitor Internet and security information resources for news of 
fresh scams and be prepared to alert customers appropriately.
      The SurfControl advisory stopped short of proving a solution to the 
problem, but we presented one in our April column, one that we have since 
refined into a simple phrase (in English rather than Latin): Proclaim, 
Protect, Pursue.
      1. Proclaim: your company states loudly and clearly, on the Web site 
and in customer correspondence, that: "All messages from the company bear 
the company's official mark; all others should be disregarded and reported 
as potentially fraudulent."
      2. Protect: your company places its official mark in all its outbound 
messages.
      3. Pursue: your company vigorously pursues legal sanctions against 
imitators of the official mark.
      This approach is based on the well-established principles of positive 
discriminators and a preponderance of discouragement, which correspond to 
Protect and Pursue, steps 2 and 3. A positive discriminator is something 
that makes it easier for the consumer to tell the difference between the 
real thing and a fake. A preponderance of discouragement is the effect of 
actions such as highly public prosecutions and finings of fakers.
      Consider how banks and software companies responded to fake credit 
cards and pirated software respectively: they deployed holograms to make 
these items harder to fake (positive discriminators); and they have pursed 
legal action against those who persist in trying to make fakes 
(preponderance of discouragement). This strategy exploits the happy 
symbiosis between the two principles. Positive discriminators aid the 
preponderance of discouragement by raising the profile of transgressors. 
Adding holograms to credit cards does not stop someone making a fake credit 
card, but it raises the cost of making a credible fake, thereby reducing 
the number of persons willing to try, and making those who do try that much 
easier to identify.
      The design of paper currency is based on these same principles, as is 
the branding of cattle, the origin of the term for the corporate asset that 
is now under attack. Companies must now "brand" their email to protect 
themselves and their customers. This can be done. The technology exists to 
embed a digital brand--something unique, such as an image or character 
string--into each outbound email. The recipient of such a message can see 
that it appears genuine, but thanks to the Internet, they can also 
interactively verify message authenticity in real time.
      Companies that act now can avoid joining the ranks of those whose 
name has already been used to target personal data: PayPal, Best Buy, 
EarthLink, eBay, AOL, Sony, Microsoft, Bank of America, Wachovia, ANZ Bank, 
Commonwealth Bank, and Westpac. As Linda Goldman-Foley of the Identity 
Theft Resource Center has pointed out, even a 0.5% return on 100,000 of 
these fraudulent emails is a major privacy breach. And for the person whose 
data is compromised, the breach is 100%.
      [Chey Cobb, CISSP, the author of "Network Security for Dummies," is 
an independent consultant (www.cheycobb.com) and a former senior technical 
security advisor to the NRO. She can be emailed as "[email protected]." 
Stephen Cobb, CISSP, helped develop SpamSquelcher, the first product that 
actually stops spam. He can be emailed as "[email protected]."

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