Techno-News Blog Ray Schroeder, editor, OTEL - University of Illinois at Springfield |
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Saturday, January 25, 2003
Electronic attack slows Internet - Associated Press
Traffic on the many parts of the Internet slowed dramatically for hours early Saturday, the apparent effects of a fast-spreading, virus-like infection that overwhelmed the world's digital pipelines and interfered with Web browsing and delivery of e-mail. Sites monitoring the health of the Internet reported significant slowdowns globally. Experts said the electronic attack bore remarkable similarities to the "Code Red" virus during the summer of 2001 which also ground traffic to a halt on much of the Internet.
Senate limits Pentagon 'snooping' plan - Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com
The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted unanimously to slap restrictions on a controversial Pentagon data-mining program that critics say would amount to a domestic spying apparatus. By unanimous consent, the Senate inserted a moratorium on the program into a massive spending bill, which was approved by a 69-29 vote late Thursday. The vote represents an unusual triumph of privacy concerns over the Bush administration's arguments that the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness (TIA) program would be useful for national security. If fully implemented, TIA would link databases from sources such as credit card companies, medical insurers and motor vehicle agencies in hopes of snaring terrorists.
New Group Joins Copy Controls Fight - Grant Gross, IDG News
A coalition of technology company heavyweights and consumer groups have joined the chorus of voices urging the U.S. government not to require anticopying schemes on PCs. The Alliance for Digital Progress (ADP), a lobbying group of 27 technology companies, consumer groups, and think tanks, was launched Thursday to oppose such mandates. It organized in response to lobbying by the Motion Picture Association of America, which seeks copy protection legislation from the U.S. Congress. Among the members of ADP are technology companies Microsoft, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Apple. Participating consumer groups include Consumer Alert, DigitalConsumer.org, and 60 Plus Association. Friday, January 24, 2003
File-Swapping Sites Grow By 300 Percent - Gretchen Hyman, Internet News
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) may be on the verge of holding individuals accountable for their online file-swapping behavior, but according to employee Internet management company Websense Inc. (Quote, Company Info) they are facing an uphill battle. A report released Thursday by San Diego-based Websense suggests that file-swapping networks have moved beyond trading just music files to a more diverse selection of content, including popular television shows, video games, and software.... According to Websense, the number of peer-to-peer file sharing Web pages has increased by more than 300 percent in the last 12 months. Websense also reported that there are more than 130 peer-to-peer applications currently available online, among them KaZaa and Grokster.
Senator Seeks Curbs on Computer Dragnet - Susan Cornwell, Reuters
A senior Republican senator joined efforts on Wednesday to prevent a fledgling Pentagon computer dragnet from invading the privacy of U.S. citizens while searching databases for terrorist threats. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the Senate Finance Committee chairman, stopped short of embracing an attempt by Democrats to block all funding for the controversial Bush administration program, known as the Total Information Awareness project.
Bill Gates Email on Security in a Connected World
As we increasingly rely on the Internet to communicate and conduct business, a secure computing platform has never been more important. Along with the vast benefits of increased connectivity, new security risks have emerged on a scale that few in our industry fully anticipated. As everyone who uses a computer knows, the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data and systems can be compromised in many ways, from hacker attacks to Internet-based worms. These security breaches carry significant costs. Although many companies do not detect or report attacks, the most recent computer crime and security survey performed by the Computer Security Institute and the Federal Bureau of Investigation totaled more than $455 million in quantified financial losses in the United States alone in 2001. Of those surveyed, 74 percent cited their Internet connection as a key point of attack. Thursday, January 23, 2003
PC Home Networking On the Rise - Gretchen Hyman, Siliconvalley
Bill Gates calls it the "Digital Decade". Steve Jobs envisions the "Digital Hub". But one thing is for sure - we are connecting to the Internet in some pretty new and original ways. Research released this week by Dallas-based market research and consulting firm Parks Associates indicates that increasing numbers of U.S. households are using media-enabled PCs in the same room as their home entertainment systems. A randomly selected swath of 10,800 Internet-enabled households surveyed by Parks Associates show an increasing trend among consumers to combine the media functionality of their primary PCs with consumer electronics products, such as televisions and stereos.
Internet browser that quadruples surf speed wins Irish science prize - Agence France-Presse
A computer browser that is said to least quadruple surfing speeds on the Internet has won the top prize at an Irish exhibition for young scientists, it was announced on Saturday. Adnan Osmani, 16, a student at Saint Finian's College in Mullingar, central Ireland spent 18 months writing 780,000 lines of computer code to develop the browser. Known as "XWEBS", the system works with an ordinary Internet connection using a 56K modem on a normal telephone line. The software was tested by scientists at University College, Dublin last week and they found it boosted surfing speeds by between 100 and 500 percent depending on the basic dial-up connection rate.
Coming Soon: A Digital Dark Age? - Anick Jesdanun, Associated Press
..."There's kind of a common misperception about digital lasting forever," said Howard Besser, director of the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program at New York University. "It comes out of the fact that a digital copy is a perfect copy." Consider the fate of the British Broadcasting Corp.'s computer-based collection of photographs, writings and other snapshots of life in 1986, the 900th anniversary of the written English survey, the Domesday Book. While scholars can still read the 1086 tome, the digital version needs customized software and hardware that are breaking down from old age, meaning records from just 17 years ago are rapidly vanishing. NASA's early space records are suffering a similar fate, as Joe Miller recently discovered.... Wednesday, January 22, 2003
Profiling the hackers - Associated Press
Just as authorities use profiling to guard against criminals at ports and borders, researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo are developing software that can generate highly personalized profiles of network users by analyzing the sequences of commands entered at each computer terminal. The system — a prototype is likely to be ready for intensive testing this summer — could provide a high-grade layer of protection for military installations and government agencies as well as banking or other commercial networks that require especially tight monitoring.
Green light for UK wireless hotspots
The UK Government has offered another boost for broadband, opening up more of the airwaves for faster net services. Wireless hotspots have become popular in towns and cities across the UK, allowing business users to connect to the net via their laptops in hotels, airports and cafes. Now the government has opened up more of the radio frequencies that can carry data, which will allow operators to offer even faster wireless local area networks (WLANs).
Heavy hitters to dominate LinuxWorld - Ed Scannell, InfoWorld
Dominant Linux playsers including IBM and HP are proving to be the chief beneficiaries of Linux's rising financial fortunes in the enterprise as smaller Linux-only companies struggle for survival. The industry's top-tier companies will use this week's LinuxWorld Expo in New York to roll out a raft of Linux products that span from desktop to mainframe environments, reflecting the technology's strategic importance to cross-platform strategies and bottom-line performance.
Can a Human Being Fit on an IPod? - Scarlet Pruitt, IDG
Life science technology is about as cutting-edge as it gets, but now it's apparently also hip. At least that's the image projected by University of New Hampshire researcher Will Gilbert, who has taken to carrying around the human genome on his Apple Computer iPod. Gilbert, who heads the bioinformatics group at the university's Hubbard Center for Genome Studies, loaded the 3 billion chemical nucleotide letters in the human genome on his iPod one day when he discovered it would be faster than waiting for his network to copy the information. Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Gates preaches 'digital decade' vision - Paul Krill, InfoWorld
Bill Gates, Microsoft's chief software architect and co-founder, preached an upbeat vision of technology in a keynote speech here Friday evening. Speaking at the Indian Institute of Technology's 50th Anniversary Celebration gathering, Gates said people within this decade will be doing more things digitally. "The vision that we have is the digital decade," Gates said.
Frontier psychology drives spread of Wi-Fi access - ROB LEVER, Agence France-Presse
... Wi-Fi, a technology for connecting to the Internet without wires, is the hottest trend in the tech sector, offering a ray of hope to the battered industry. As millions of portable computers become equipped to go wireless, tens of thousands of "hot spots" are being set up in airports, hotels, cafes and other locations in the U.S. market and around the world. Experts estimate about 10,000 hot spots have been set up worldwide, but that number is rapidly growing - big companies and small start-ups are rushing to get in on the action, giving the market a Wild West atmosphere.
Getting Online in the Golden Years
According to a recent SeniorNet report, 46% of US seniors -- people age 50 and older -- have been using the internet for over five years. Another 41% say they have been using the net for between two and five years. SeniorNet surveyed 2,084 people in the US age 50 and older between September and November 2002 and determined that while most seniors (94%) use the net to communicate with friends and family, many go online for news (72%), health information (70%), product research (49%) and even to play games (35%). Monday, January 20, 2003
Microsoft's next frontier: wireless - Associated Press
After dominating the desktop, burrowing into the Internet and bursting into the video game market, Microsoft Corp. is making progress at getting firmly into the palm of your hand. Already a force in software for personal digital assistants, Microsoft is ramping up efforts to provide the operating systems for those devices' close relative: the next generation of "smart" cell phones that can handle e-mail, digital photos and other data. Microsoft splashed into the smart-phone scene in Europe last year with a device sold by the British wireless carrier Orange.
IPv6: Welcome to the IPv6 Information Page
Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is a new standard that will gradually replace the aging IPv4. Spurred by problems with the previous version, its development has the advantage of assigning each device connected to the Internet with its own unique address, as well as several other features. The first site is an information page with plenty of resources and links for people to learn about the new protocol and how the transition between IPv4 and IPv6 will occur. A list of applications already using IPv6 is also provided. From The NSDL Scout Report for Math, Engineering, and Technology, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2002. http://scout.wisc.edu/
WAVE Report: Covering Next Generation Computing and Communications Technologies
"The WAVE Report is a timely source of news about technology, products and markets." Published approximately once a week, it is an excellent way to stay informed about current industry trends and developments. The report provides coverage of many conferences, which, in the past, included OLED 2002 (OLED stands for organic light-emitting), the 2002 Consumer Electronics Show, and many others. Some feature stories of recent issues include wireless local area networks and handwriting recognition technologies. Occasionally ,an issue of the WAVE Report will have a tutorial of a technical issue, which offers a basic overview of the topic. From The NSDL Scout Report for Math, Engineering, and Technology, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2002. http://scout.wisc.edu/ Sunday, January 19, 2003
Colleges cracking down on students downloading pirated material - REBECCA TROUNSON, Los Angeles Times
Alex Honigman can't remember exactly what he was looking for on the Web that October night, but he insists it wasn't what he ended up with: the latest Clint Eastwood movie. Nonetheless, when the Pitzer College junior clicked open the file containing scenes from the Eastwood thriller "Blood Work," he tripped an electronic alarm system at Warner Bros., the film's producer, which then notified his Claremont school.
Technology Center Aims to Close 'Digital Divide' - Stephanie Stassel, Times Staff Writer
A computer center that opened Thursday in the northeast San Fernando Valley is more than just a place to type a resume. The Pacoima Community Technology Center offers training for medical office jobs as well as online college classes for adults and computer instruction and homework help for children. The center houses the Valley Family Technology Project, a $3-million government-industry partnership launched in October 2001 to help close the so-called "digital divide" in the community.
Big future for Bluetooth
Despite the aura of gloom pervading the computer market in 2002, one technology looks like it had a good year. A report out this week shows that Bluetooth, the short-range radio system, experienced dramatic growth over the last 12 months. Once the final figures are collected, market research firm In-Stat/MDR expects Bluetooth chip shipments to be up 250% on 2001. |
