Edupage, May 14, 2003

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Edupage is a service of EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association
whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting
the intelligent use of information technology.
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TOP STORIES FOR WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 2003
  Bertelsmann Under Fire from Music Publishers, Universal
  Group Advocates for Blind-Friendly Web Sites
  New York Authorities Arrest Buffalo Spammer
AND
  RIAA Sends an Apology to Penn State
  Texas Expected to Establish Online Charter School
  Designing Ergonomically Safe Computer Labs for Students
  Students Propose New Defenses for Internet Attacks


BERTELSMANN UNDER FIRE FROM MUSIC PUBLISHERS, UNIVERSAL
Universal Music Group this week announced its intention to join a
lawsuit filed in February against Bertelsmann. The lawsuit, filed by
music publishers, alleges that Bertelsmann's investment in the
file-trading service Napster contributed to music piracy until it was
shut down in 2001. Universal has since filed a separate suit that the
company expects will be combined with the publishers' suit. A
statement from Universal accuses Bertelsmann of taking "control of the
Napster system to financially benefit itself at the expense of
Universal and its artists." The other major record labels, Warner
Music, Sony Music, and EMI, have not said whether they plan to join the
suit.
Reuters, 12 May 2003
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=2726643

GROUP ADVOCATES FOR BLIND-FRIENDLY WEB SITES
The National Federation of the Blind has released a seal of approval
for organizations that have designed their Web sites to be accessible
by people with visual impairments. Such sites take steps to make the
content available and navigable either through magnification or the use
of screen readers. Wells Fargo Bank, Hewlett-Packard, and the Social
Security Administration received the first certifications from the
federation. The accessibility of the Social Security site is due in
part to a federal law that mandates equal access for persons with
disabilities. Javier Bustamonte of the Social Security agency said the
requirements of that law made it easy to qualify for the federation's
new seal of approval. The federation hopes that the seal will encourage
many businesses to design--or redesign--their sites to be available to
persons with visual impairments.
Nando Times, 12 May 2003
http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/886118p-6174154c.html

NEW YORK AUTHORITIES ARREST BUFFALO SPAMMER
Authorities in New York have arrested Howard Carmack, the so-called
"Buffalo Spammer," on charges of identity theft in connection to a spam
ring Carmack operated. Last week EarthLink won a $16 million judgment
against Carmack as well as an injunction preventing him from sending
further spam. Carmack is accused of stealing identities and setting up
nearly 350 EarthLink accounts, from which he sent or helped other send
hundreds of millions of unsolicited messages. New York Attorney General
Eliot Spitzer said Carmack is the first to be prosecuted under the
state's recently enacted identity-theft law. Dave Baker of EarthLink
said, "Carmack's arrest demonstrates that spamming has both civil and
criminal consequences."
Internet News, 14 May 2003
http://www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/2206311

AND
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RIAA SENDS AN APOLOGY TO PENN STATE
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) apologized this
week for a copyright warning notice that it sent in error to the
department of astronomy and astrophysics at Pennsylvania State
University. The RIAA uses automated programs to locate servers that are
distributing copyrighted files, which reported that one of the
department's servers was distributing files by the band Usher. The
server in question contained no such files, but the department has a
professor emeritus named Peter Usher. This, combined with the presence
of an MP3 file of a group of astronomers singing about a satellite, set
of the RIAA's crawler. According to the RIAA, all notices are checked
before they are sent out, but this one was not properly reviewed and
was sent in error. A statement from the RIAA said, "In this particular
instance, a temp employee made a mistake and did not follow RIAA's
established protocol." The RIAA also said that of the tens of thousands
of notices sent out, this was the first faulty notice discovered.
CNET, 12 May 2003
http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-1001095.html

TEXAS EXPECTED TO ESTABLISH ONLINE CHARTER SCHOOL
The Texas Legislature will likely pass a bill to create a virtual
charter school to offer online courses to primary and secondary
students. The Texas Legislature, however, is currently deadlocked due
to partisan rivalry and a resulting lack of quorum. The proposed school
would be run by two state universities, which have yet to be selected.
Republican State Senator Florence Shapiro sponsored the legislation to
"provide flexibility and the use of available technology and online
resources to meet students' individual needs." A similar bill was
rejected due to concerns over the program's potential cost with
unlimited enrollment. The bill proposes a 2,000 student cap and will
cost roughly $9 million over two years. The state government created a
similar program two years ago that is administered by school districts
and enrolls 450 students. The University of Texas, which already runs a
virtual charter school without state assistance, would like to
participate in the state-run program to increase students' options,
according to Robert Bruce at the Austin campus's Distance Education
Center.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 May 2003 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003051303t.htm

DESIGNING ERGONOMICALLY SAFE COMPUTER LABS FOR STUDENTS
A bill recently signed by New Jersey Governor James McGreevey will help
prevent repetitive strain injuries in school-age children in the state.
The bill establishes the Ergonomics in Education Study Commission, a
group of teachers, school administrators, medical professionals, and
ergonomics researchers who will investigate the problem of such
injuries and provide recommendations about implementing ergonomic
standards in the state's schools. Studies show that most children
between the ages of 5 and 17 use computers, though no broad-based
research has been done on repetitive motion injuries in children.
Supporters of the legislation, including Alan Hedge, professor and
operator of the ergonomics Web site at Cornell University, argue that a
program that encourages children to develop good ergonomic habits will
likely prevent many strain-related injuries in adulthood. At least one
university has created a program for students with repetitive strain
injury; Harvard RSI Action provides information for Harvard University
students and for the general public.
Wired News, 14 May 2003
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,58826,00.html

STUDENTS PROPOSE NEW DEFENSES FOR INTERNET ATTACKS
Two graduate students from Carnegie Mellon University presented their
ideas about controlling denial-of-service attacks to attendees at the
IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. The first approach, offered by
Abraham Yaar, would use data in e-mail headers to identify the path a
message took through a network. Using this information, a system can
determine whether traffic from some portions of the Internet should be
blocked by the Internet service provider (ISP). According to Yaar, such
an approach would leave 60 percent of a server's capacity for
legitimate users, even if "total attack traffic is 170 times the
legitimate traffic." Yaar's method reportedly works well when IP
addresses are spoofed and would even work if fewer than half of the
ISPs adopted the protocol. The second proposal, from XiaoFeng Wang,
challenges network traffic to perform a task to be allowed to
communicate with the server. The server would require small "puzzles"
that would be insignificant for legitimate users but would overload
someone attempting a denial-of-service attack.
ZDNet, 13 May 2003
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-1001200.html

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