NewsScan Daily, 22 Jul 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 22 Jul 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Telecoms Team with Satellite TV Firms to Combat Cable
        Biometrics Technology: Not Yet Ready for Primetime
        Identity Theft: A Crime That Pays?
        Outsourcing: It's 11 PM, Do You Know Where the Sun Is?
        Harlan Ellison, Cudgel in Hand Against Copyright Thieves
        Opposing Armies Line Up in Intellectual Property War

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Karl Jaspers

TELECOMS TEAM WITH SATELLITE TV FIRMS TO COMBAT CABLE
In an effort to stave off competition from cable companies, SBC and Qwest 
have forged alliances with satellite TV providers that will broaden their 
appeal to media-hungry consumers. SBC and EchoStar, provider of the Dish 
Network, will offer a cobranded service to households in SBC's 13-state 
service area. Separately, Qwest has formed partnerships with both EchoStar 
and its rival, DirecTV. "We're a major step closer to providing customers 
with a true one-stop shopping experience -- one bill, one number to call 
and one Web site to visit for all of their communications and programming 
needs," says Qwest chairman and CEO Richard Notebaert. SBC chairman and CEO 
Edward Whitacre Jr. says teaming up with EchoStar will put SBC on equal 
footing with cable firms, which are experimenting with Internet telephony 
services that could cut into traditional telecom markets. One satellite 
analyst predicts the latest announcements could spark a wave of similar 
partnerships: "I expect all the major telcos will have video deals with 
DirecTV or EchoStar. The SBC deal is a good precursor to watch how the 
others will sort it out," says Thomas Watts of SG Cowen. But Rick Black, a 
senior telecom analyst with Blaylock & Partners, discounted that forecast, 
saying the two other local phone giants, Verizon and BellSouth, may not 
need video partnerships because they already offer strong bundles of 
services, including wireless and long-distance services. (AP 21 Jul 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030721/D7SE59002.html

BIOMETRICS TECHNOLOGY: NOT YET READY FOR PRIMETIME
Gartner Research director Anthony Allen told guests at the launch of 
European Biometrics Forum that while widespread use of biometrics was 
likely by 2008, the technologies still had some kinks to be ironed out. 
Biometrics, which includes technologies used for voice, face, iris and 
fingerprint identification systems, is virtually useless without adequate 
back security measures and databases, said Allen, and current systems have 
several fallibilities that must be corrected. For instance, evidence shows 
that wearing eyeglasses can fool an eyescanner, prosthetic makeup can 
confuse face scanners, a sore throat can change a voice print and breathing 
heavily on a fingerprint scanner can make prints unrecognizable. However, 
newer generations of technology are beginning to rectify some of these 
shortcomings; the latest fingerprint scanners now incorporate methods of 
detecting body heat and blood flow and can scan below the surface later, 
making it more difficult to deceive. (The Register 22 Jul 2003)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/31865.html

IDENTITY THEFT: A CRIME THAT PAYS?
The number of victims that have fallen prey to identity thieves is severely 
underreported, according to a study by Gartner Research, which estimates 
that 3.4% of U.S. consumers -- about 7 million adults -- have suffered ID 
theft in the past year. Moreover, identity thieves generally get away with 
it -- arrests are made in only one out of every 700 cases. "The odds are 
really stacked against consumers," says Gartner VP Avivah Litan. 
"Unfortunately, they are the only ones with a vested interest in fixing the 
problem." Typically, victims of ID theft learn of the crime a year or more 
later after it happens -- long after the trail has gone cold. "It is 
different from payment fraud, where the thief takes a credit card number 
and consumers are innocent until proven guilty. With identity theft, it is 
the opposite: Consumers are thought to be guilty until proven innocent," 
says Litan. "There is a serious disconnect between the magnitude of 
identity theft that innocent consumers experience and the [financial] 
industry's proper recognition of the crime. Without external pressure from 
legislators and industry associations, financial services providers may not 
have sufficient incentive to stem the flow of identity crimes." (CNet 
News.com 21 Jul 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1009_3-5050295.html

OUTSOURCING: IT'S 11 PM, DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE SUN IS?
Debashish Sinha of Gartner Inc., a research and consulting firm, calls the 
outsourcing of high-tech jobs "a very important, fundamental transition in 
the IT service industry that's taking place today," and characterizes it as 
a "megatrend in the IT services industry." But Phil Friedman, a software 
executive for a U.S. company, fears that once high-tech jobs leave the 
country "they will never come back," and predicts: "If we continue losing 
these jobs, our schools will stop producing the computer engineers and 
programmers we need for the future." But the immediate problem faced by 
businesses is how to get the work done and get it done at the best price; 
Stephanie Moore, vice president for outsourcing at the Forrester Research 
firm, explains: "You can get crackerjack Java programmers in India right 
out of college for $5,000 a year versus $60,000 here. The technology is 
such, why be in New York City when you can be 9,000 miles away with far 
less expense?" On the other hand, many executives insist that the goal is 
not to cut costs as much as it is to provide more and better services. 
Oracle executive David Samson says: "Our aim here is not cost-driven. It's 
to build a 24/7 follow-the-sun model for development and support. When a 
software engineer goes to bed at night in the U.S., his or her colleague in 
India picks up development when they get into work. They're able to 
continually develop products." (New York Times 22 Jul 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/07/22/technology/22JOBS.html

HARLAN ELLISON, CUDGEL IN HAND AGAINST COPYRIGHT THIEVES
Well-known science fiction writer Harlan Ellison is suing America Online 
for copyright infringement because it didn't respond quickly enough to 
delete from its Web site a fan's posting of some of Ellison's stories, 
without permission, on an AOL online forum. America Online says it removed 
the stories as soon as it was aware of them. Ellison has always been a 
fierce protector of copyright protections, and now says: "People like AOL 
have turned this nation and its kids into a nation of thieves, who have no 
more notion of what's right than the man on the moon. I really see myself 
as standing there on the g-d- barricade, with a cudgel in my hand.... We 
are up against inimical forces. We are up against city hall." Ellison's 
lawsuit, to be heard by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is being 
supported by a number of major software firms and record labels. (Wall 
Street Journal 22 Jul 2003)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105882058352830200,00.html (sub req'd)

OPPOSING ARMIES LINE UP IN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY WAR
In an effort to battle Internet theft of copyrighted music, the Recording 
Industry Association of America (RIAA) has subpoenaed 871 individuals, and 
demanded that the Internet service providers used by those individuals 
reveal personal data about them. Verizon's Sarah Deutsch complains, "We've 
received 150 subpoenas in two weeks. This type of activity is 
unprecedented." Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation 
says, "The privacy questions are huge. They treat everyone as a copyright 
infringer, and you're assumed guilty until proven innocent." (USA Today 21 
Jul 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2003-07-21-swappers_x.htm

*****

FLASH CARD
      "The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can 
alter his life by altering his attitude." (William James)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: KARL JASPERS
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is philosopher and psychiatrist Karl 
Jaspers (1883-1969). whose study of the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and 
Søren Kierkegaard influenced him to embrace existential philosophy, his 
version of which he presented in a three-volume work published in 1932.
      Jaspers later elaborated his philosophy in such works as "Reason and 
Existenz" and "The Question of German Guilt." He distinguished between two 
states of being -- Dasein and Existenz. Dasein refers to existence in an 
ordinary and minimal sense (concerned with the practical management of 
everyday life and known through objective scientific investigation), 
whereas Existenz refers to the richness of authentic being, defined by 
Jaspers as the experience of total freedom, of infinite possibility, and of 
loneliness, known through individual insight or intuition.
      Jaspers was a religious existentialist, and believed that the element 
of transcendence in his philosophy could be compared to that of traditional 
Christianity. Jaspers enjoyed a wide, nonacademic readership, and some 
theologians also showed an interest in his work.
      In his later work, as a reaction to the disruptions of Nazi rule in 
Germany and World War II, he searched for a new unity of thinking that he 
called "world philosophy."
      Jaspers was the oldest of the three children. Delicate and sickly as 
a child, his health remained less than robust throughout his adult life. He 
studied law at Heidelberg and Munich and medicine and psychiatry at Berlin, 
Göttingen and Heidelberg, where he received his M.D. in 1909 and in 1910, 
he married Gertrud Mayer, whom he had met during his student years.
      Early in his practice of psychiatry, Jaspers distinguished himself by 
his research and innovative approach to treatment, so much so that in 1911 
he was invited by a leading publisher to write a textbook on 
psychopathology, which he completed in two years. In 1916 he was appointed 
assistant professor in psychology on Heidelberg University's medical 
faculty. Later he was moved to the philosophy faculty, the transition due 
in part to the fact that the philosophical faculty needed an empirical 
psychologist. The transition suited Jaspers' emerging interest in 
existentialism and led to his development as a leading figure in that movement.
      During the Nazi regime Jaspers was relieved of his duties (his wife 
was Jewish), but after the war in 1945 he was reinstated. Discouraged by 
events related to the de-nazification of the Heidelberg faculty, in 1948 he 
moved to the University of Basel in Switzerland, where he undertook to 
write a universal history of the world, published in 1953 as "The Origin 
and Goal of History."

See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573925292/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for a selection of basic writings of Karl Jaspers -- or look for it in your 
favorite library. (We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to 
adult literacy programs.)

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