Pc News

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U.S. Data Mining Goes Beyond Terrorist Hunt

The FBI is using data mining programs to track everyone from potential terrorists to individuals who file fraudulent automobile insurance claims, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report filed with Congress this week.

The DOJ report, which is required under the Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005, details six pattern-based data mining initiatives currently under way or planned by the department and its components. "Each of these initiatives is extremely valuable for investigators, allowing them to analyze and process lawfully acquired information more effectively in order to detect potential criminal activity and focus resources appropriately," a DOJ spokesman said in an e-mailed statement.

In a statement, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the report was four months late and raised more questions than it answered. The report "demonstrates just how dramatically the Bush administration has expanded the use of [data mining] technology, often in secret, to collect and sift through Americans' most sensitive personal information," he said.

At the same time, the report provides an "important and all-too-rare ray of sunshine on the department's data mining activities," Leahy said. It would give Congress a way to conduct "meaningful oversight" he said. "I look forward to thoroughly examining the findings in this report with the attorney general and the FBI director in the coming weeks."

Among the six FBI pattern-based data mining initiatives listed in the DOJ report are:

-- A soon-to-be-launched program called the System to Assess Risk initiative designed to help FBI analysts focus in on individuals who may merit further scrutiny from a terrorist standpoint. According to the DOJ, the initiative will not "label anyone a terrorist." Rather, it is designed to help the FBI save time by focusing on those who have already been identified as persons of interest.

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Re-Vote Likely After E-Vote Error

A California judge is likely to order a Berkeley city initiative back on the ballot because of local officials' mishandling of electronic voting machine data, a public-interest lawyer arguing the case said Friday.

In a preliminary ruling Thursday, Judge Winifred Smith of the Alameda County Superior Court indicated she would nullify the defeat of a medical marijuana proposal in Berkeley in 2004 and order the measure put back on the ballot in a later election. A hearing on Friday morning in advance of a final ruling brought out nothing that indicated Smith would deviate from her preliminary decision, said attorney Gregory Luke, who is representing Americans for Safe Access. The medical-marijuana advocacy group is suing the county, assisted by the technology rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The case points to the dangers of electronic voting systems, which make it harder to ensure fair elections, Luke said. Electronic voting machines have been widely adopted in the U.S. since the disputed presidential election of 2000. Laws in California and some other states now require paper records of all votes, but the California law wasn't in place for the Berkeley election.

Both sides argued their cases before Smith on Friday in a last-ditch hearing on the proposed sanctions, according to Luke. The hearing brought out nothing new that suggested Smith would change direction, he said.

Americans for Free Access sought a recount of the vote on Measure R, which would have established procedures for opening marijuana dispensaries in Berkeley. It lost by fewer than 200 votes. A recount wasn't possible because the city didn't share the necessary voting records, in violation of election laws, Judge Smith ruled in April. In May, the county agreed to share some data.

The county reused voting machines from Diebold Election Systems Inc. without saving sufficient data to carry out a recount or review the election process, Luke said. Officials failed to save key evidence even after the suit was pending, he said. Data from the vote in question has only been found on 20 of the hundreds of machines used in the election, according to Luke.

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European iPhones Expected to Surf on EDGE and Wi-Fi

The first of Apple Inc.'s iPhones to ship in Europe this fall will function wirelessly over slower EDGE networks as well as in Wi-Fi hot spots, the same as in the U.S., according to an industry analyst based in Italy.

The first version of iPhone in Europe "definitely will be on EDGE," said Gartner Inc. analyst Carolina Milanesi. The first European version could ship as early as October, based on information provided by Apple, she said. Apple has said it will ship there sometime in the fourth quarter.

Milanesi said in a telephone interview that she learned about the EDGE capability of the first European iPhone from "people working on the device in Taiwan," adding later that it was "common knowledge" it would use EDGE before it was capable of handling the faster 3G networks.

Some analysts and users have speculated that Apple would jump directly to a 3G-capable iPhone for its first version in Europe, partly owing to concerns that the Web browsing capability in the U.S. with AT&T Inc.'s EDGE network has been slow and unsatisfactory for some users who bought iPhones in the U.S. after June 29.

AT&T and Apple officials have defended EDGE -- Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution -- even at download speeds of 70Kbit/sec to 135Kbit/sec, because it reaches 270 million people in the U.S., making it the largest network. They have also said EDGE speeds will be fine for most users, and that some will browse via Wi-Fi hot spots that are much faster. It is unclear when Apple will create a 3G phone for use in the U.S., which would conceivably run over AT&T's faster HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) network, which has reached 165 metropolitan areas but is still a smaller footprint than EDGE.

In Europe, 3G networks are further along, and the percentage of cell-phone users is higher than in the U.S., although it recognized that 3G network users find their batteries run down sooner than with 2.5G, Milanesi said. She blamed the faster burning of batteries over 3G on the increased use of 3G phones, including data rich files such as photos and videos, and not because of an issue inherent to 3G networks.

[Rasputin]

Xbox 360 Exec Leaves Microsoft

Less than two weeks after Microsoft Corp. announced a US$1 billion charge to extend the warranty of failing Xbox 360 consoles, the executive who headed the company's video game business has resigned to take a job with game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. (EA).

Peter Moore, 52, the former president of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business (IEB) group, resigned Tuesday, Microsoft announced. Moore, who had joined Microsoft in 2003 after a stint as Sega of America Inc.'s chief executive, will oversee EA's sports games.

Microsoft said that Moore's departure was unrelated to the July 5 announcement of a more than $1 billion charge against earnings to account for an "unacceptable" number of hardware failures of the Xbox 360. The charge will pay for a warranty extension from one year to three years for the console.

"Peter has contributed enormously to the games business since joining Microsoft, and we are sad to see him go," said Robbie Bach, president of the company's entertainment and devices division, and Moore's boss, in a statement Tuesday.

Moore said his decision to leave Microsoft was largely driven by a desire to return to San Francisco, where he grew up. "I couldn't be more excited about joining EA and moving my family back to the San Francisco Bay area," Moore said in a statement issued by EA.

"I think you have to take it at face value," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at ***kland, Wash.-based Directions on Microsoft. "It looks like this move was in the works for some time."

According to a filing by EA to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Moore was offered the new job June 5, a month before Microsoft divulged the high Xbox 360 failure rate. In the offer letter, Moore's $550,000 annual salary was spelled out, as was a $1.5 million signing bonus and an option to buy up to 350,000 shares of EA stock. Microsoft, however, has acknowledged that it knew of the Xbox 360 problems for several months before unveiling the new warranty program and its associated charge.

[Rasputin]

Mozilla: Security Remains on Front Burner

With the release of its latest Firefox 2.0.0.5 browser, open-source software maker Mozilla claims to have fixed a number of potentially serious vulnerabilities in its flagship product.

According to the firm's chief security officer, the company is working harder than ever to keep its users protected.

Through the launch of Firefox 2.0.0.5 late on July 17, Mozilla moved to patch nine individual flaws resident in previous iterations of the program.

Patches built into 2.0.0.5 included those meant to address multiple memory corruption bugs, a cross-site scripting vulnerability, and a flaw that could give attackers access to the browser's cache.

Among the other problems the company addressed in the update was even an unusual vulnerability that could cause malicious code to run on a PC if the browser is launched using Microsoft's rival Internet Explorer software -- a flaw that Mozilla could have easily pinned on Microsoft, despite denials from the software maker that it is at all responsible for mending the issue.

And while some security experts still maintain that open-source products are ill-fitted for use inside enterprise businesses as they may leave the door open to savvy attackers who can take advantage of the readily-available nature of the products' widely-published source code, Window Snyder, whose official title is "chief security something-or-other" at Mozilla, claims that the firm's very makeup has led Firefox and the vendor's other products to offer stronger protection for end-users than proprietary systems with which they compete.

"Transparency has been one of the key factors to our success in improving security; some see doing development with the whole world watching as an obstacle, and at times it can be a challenge, but we see it as a unique strength," Snyder said.

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2G iPhone Rumors Swirl as European-launch Beckons

Rumors that Apple is preparing a second-generation iPhone continue to circulate, with Far East manufacturers and an analyst adding their weight to the discussion.

A recent report in the Chinese-language Commercial Times claims Taiwan's Wintek has secured the contract to manufacture touch-screens for the device.


As reported by DigiTimes, the new iPhone will ship in September -- at a significantly lower price than current models -- US$249-299 as against the current product price of $499 or $599.

Mobile industry sources now believe Apple will ship a European version of the iPhone as soon as September, but it's not yet clear if this will be identical to the model sold in the US.

It's thought that O2 may secure the contract, but Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile have also been named as networks interested in carrying the device.

Reports of an iPhone nano follow in fighting at analyst house JPMorgan. One analyst there claimed an iPhone nano was in development to debut soon, another at the firm disagreed. That firm's official position now is that a 3G iPhone is in development.

Dawson Market Research analyst Jason Munford believes Apple does have plans to introduce an iPhone nano, which he anticipates the company will target at younger users. The analyst predicts Apple could sell up to 40 million of these in 2008.

DigiTimes points out that its own sources have trickled no new information on any 2G iPhone plans at this point, but has claimed that Quanta, Inventec and Foxconn are all attempting to secure the contract to manufacture iPhones for the European market.

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Sources: Windows Vista SP1 Beta Due This Week

Microsoft Corp. could pull the trigger on putting out a beta of the first service pack for Windows Vista any day, with a final release by November, sources close to the company said.

Microsoft has been mum about exactly what will be included in Windows Vista Service Pack 1, a rollup of updates for the OS, many of which are pushed out automatically through its Web-based update services. The company also has not said when the software will be in final release, with the latest from the company revealing only that a beta will be out sometime before the end of the year.

The WinBeta.org blog reported Tuesday in a post that Microsoft 's Windows Driver Kit (WDK) team sent out an e-mail to beta testers that a new build of the WDK was being released to them to coincide "with the recent OS beta release for Vista SP1 Preview," hinting that SP1 beta is soon to be sent to testers.

Others speculate Microsoft might release the SP1 beta Thursday, the day it will report the company's fiscal 2007 fourth quarter and year-end financial results.

In an e-mail interview Wednesday one source close to the company said he had been told by insiders that a beta of SP1 would be out by now, so an imminent release is highly likely. And another in an interview over instant messenger said that beta testers report SP1 will definitely be out this week, with a final release coming in November or December.

At Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver two weeks ago, Mike Sievert, corporate vice president of the Windows business group at Microsoft, toed the party line on Vista SP1 and said little about when it would be released or what would be in it, and hinted that Microsoft's own plans for the service pack are still in flux.

Sievert also downplayed the software's role in when some Windows users will upgrade to Vista, though it's widely known many users -- especially business and enterprise customers -- are waiting for SP1 before replacing Windows XP with Vista.

"Most companies are still in the evaluation phase," he said in an interview. "Service pack or no service pack, they're still looking at what they will deploy."

[Rasputin]

Free Security Tool Ferrets out Unpatched Software

A Danish security vendor is offering a free tool designed to inform users when their applications need patching.

Secunia ApS released the beta version of Personal Software Inspector for download, a client program that periodically checks to see if new updates have been issued for some 4,200 applications.

After installation, the tool inventories a computer's software and versions. It classifies programs as "insecure," "end-of-life" or "up-to-date." The tool then runs when the computer is started.

When a patch is issued for a program on a user's computer, the tool displays a pop-up window in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, said Thomas Kristensen, Secunia's chief technology officer. Another panel provides a download link for the patch.

Personal Software Inspector is intended to get users to apply patches soon after release, as hackers increasingly are trying to exploit vulnerabilities in a wider range of applications. Users may also be uninformed about a new patch, Secunia said.

Some software programs, such as Apple Inc.'s QuickTime and the Firefox browser, will check on startup to see if patches are available and download and install those patches. But Kristensen said not all programs do this, and sometimes those mechanisms don't work properly.

"I'll argue we are more reliable than other update mechanisms," Kristensen said.

Other products, such as VersionTracker, will notify users when a new software version is available. But Kristensen said Secunia's software and service is focused on security, rather than merely alerting users when any new software version is released.

Secunia monitors the Web sites of a large number of software vendors for security advisories. Those advisories are put into a database, and the Personal Software Inspector polls the database periodically to check for changes, Kristensen said.

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AppleCare Debuts for iPhone

Apple now offers the AppleCare Protection Plan for iPhone. The plan, which costs US$69, extends Apple's repair coverage to two years from the original purchase date of the iPhone.

Whether it's purchased from the Apple Store or an AT&T Wireless retail store, the iPhone comes with one year of hardware repair coverage, and, according to the details of AT&T's service contract, up to two years of technical support. The US$69 AppleCare plan expands the hardware repair coverage for an additional year.

The plan guarantees you of genuine Apple replacement parts, should your iPhone require physical repair, and also permits transfer of the plan between owners. It covers the iPhone and iPhone Bluetooth headset and included accessories.

As with AppleCare on other Apple-branded hardware, you must purchase the AppleCare Protection Plan within your original one-year warranty.

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Facebook Tries to Fend Off Copyright-Infringement Claim

Brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra say Facebook was their idea and are asking a judge to give them all of the assets and ownership rights to the site, which could be worth several billion dollars.

In 2002, they say, they began developing a business plan for a Web site originally called the Harvard Connection and later renamed ConnectU. The next year they engaged Mark Zuckerberg to complete the computer program software and other work for the Web site. But they accuse Zuckerberg of using their ideas and code to launch Facebook before finishing the work he promised to do for ConnectU and claiming the idea as his own.

"Zuckerberg knowingly made false statement of intention when he agreed to create, complete, and/or provide source code to . . . the Harvard Connection website," the complaint states. "Zuckerberg never intended to provide the code and instead intended to breach his promise . . . and intended to steal the idea for the Harvard Connection website, and in fact he did so."

The court battle began in 2004, but the original complaint was dismissed -- reportedly because of a technicality -- on March 28. The legal merits of the case were never ruled upon, and Zuckerberg's former classmates refiled their complaint in U.S. District Court in Boston, where tomorrow's hearing will be held to consider Zuckerberg's motions to dismiss.

"Only one of [the students] had an idea significant enough to build a great company. That one person was Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of the popular website, www.facebook.com," Zuckerberg's lawyers state in one of the motions.

Four of Zuckerberg's business partners are also listed as defendants, along with Facebook itself.

[Rasputin]

Printer Cartridges Still Being Thrown Away

Most used printer cartridges are thrown away with less than half re-used or even recycled, according to a new report from InfoTrends.

The printer supplies industry is failing to support environmental goals with OEMs and focusing on new cartridge sales and printer supply profit mountains. Meanwhile, some appear to see recycling - where the whole cartridge is broken down - as a neat way to avoid cartridge re-filling, which hurts profits.

It also appears that the WEEE directive is making it more difficult to re-use printer cartridges, an example perhaps of the law of unintended consequences.

In the report, "2007 Supplies Recycling: US and Europe," it is clear that original printer manufacturers (OEMs) and re-manufacturers - 3rd party suppliers of refilled toner and ink cartridges - are competing to collect used cartridges. The OEMs will recycle them; have them broken down into component materials, while the re-manufacturers will try to profitably refill and resell cartridges, at lower prices than brand new cartridges."

Like a milk bottle, a printer cartridge contains a consumable. Once used up the cartridge could be used again, re-filled with ink or toner, and supplied to customers. A combination of re-use-unfriendly product design and printer OEM reluctance to support re-use is leading to most used cartridges either being thrown away or recycled into components.

Third-party supplies companies collect 70 percent more empty OEM toner cartridges and 700 percent more empty OEM inkjet cartridges than the OEMs themselves.

Collection is difficult as customers may be expected to post used cartridges back to a recycler or re-manufacturer. The cost of the postage can exceed the value of a returned empty cartridge to a re-manufacturer. The recently introduced WEEE directive will not help re-manufacturers as empty cartridges will go to local authority or other recycling centers - effectively out of reach of the re-manufacturers.

Recycling appears to be endorsed by printer OEMs as a way of stopping used cartridges getting into the hands of re-manufacturers who could then undercut the OEM's printer cartridge prices. The report finds that 'Through re-manufacturing, 3rd party supplies companies are able, on average, to reduce overall demand for new cartridges by about 20 percent.' It suggests that some printer manufacturers, such as Xerox and Lexmark, are beginning to realize that re-use is better than recycling.

Re-use of toner and ink cartridges is made more difficult by the profusion of different types. If there were only a few standard sizes and type of cartridge, such as batteries with AA standard sizes, then re-use would be much easier. Cartridges are also not designed for re-use. That is why re-manufacturers prefer so-called virgin empties, cartridges used once only. Each use cycle lessens the likelihood that the cartridge can be profitably used again.

The report finds that '80 percent of re-manufactured toner cartridges and 86 percent of re-manufactured inkjet cartridges are thrown away' because it is uneconomic to refill them again.

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Computer Learns Baby Talk

A computer program that learns to decode sounds from different languages in the same way that a baby does helps to shed new light on how people learn to talk, researchers say.

They said the finding casts doubt on theories that babies are born knowing all the possible sounds in all of the world's languages.

"The debate in language acquisition is around the question of how much specific information about language is hard-wired into the brain of the infant and how much of the knowledge that infants acquire about language is something that can be explained by relatively general purpose learning systems," said James McClelland, a psychology professor at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

McClelland says his computer program supports the theory that babies systematically sort through sounds until they understand the structure of a language.

"The problem the child confronts is how many categories are there and how should I think about it. We're trying to propose a method that solves that problem," said McClelland, whose work appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Expanding on some existing ideas, he and a team of international researchers developed a computer model that resembles the brain processes a baby uses when learning about speech.

He and colleagues tested their model by exposing it to "training sessions" that consisted of analyzing recorded speech in both English and Japanese between mothers and babies in a lab.

What they found is the computer was able to learn basic vowel sounds right along with baby.

"It learns how many sounds there are. It figures that out," he said in a telephone interview.

And if the computer can do it, he said, a baby can, too.

"In the past, people have tried to argue it wasn't possible for any machine to learn these things, and so it had to be hard-wired (in humans)," he said. "Those arguments, in my view, were not particularly well grounded."

[Rasputin]

Can Newest Wi-Fi Do the Job?

It's faster and has far greater range than current wireless LAN technology. And it's stable.

So is the enterprise ready to adopt products based on the most recent draft of the 802.11n wireless LAN standard?

Such products are widely available for consumers even though final ratification isn't expected for more than a year. However, unlike the transition several years ago from 802.11b to 802.11g, some vendors will be making a serious effort to sell pre-standard equipment to enterprises.

"Is 'n' ready for the enterprise? I'd say yes," said David Cohen, marketing director for Trapeze Networks. In particular, Draft 2 of the standard is unlikely to change significantly before final ratification, Cohen and other proponents say.

However, skeptics, mostly in the form of market analysts, question whether pre-standard products will succeed.

"It goes against what my 15 years in IT tell me is right," said Michael Brandenburg, a former IT manager who is now an analyst for enterprise networking systems for Current Analysis. "Do I see 'n' getting much [enterprise] market share before ratification? No."

That attitude isn't stopping Trapeze, Meru Networks and Aruba Networks, all of which say they expect to release enterprise-class equipment based on Draft 2 of the 802.11n standard before the end of the year. Nor has it stopped the Wi-Fi Alliance, which recently launched a testing program to certify Draft 2-based equipment for interoperability.

The question is whether enterprises will care.

Bucking the trend

Large companies rarely commit to a new standard until it is fully ratified because pre-standard equipment may not be stable and is subject to change. And Cisco Systems Inc., by far the largest vendor of enterprise-class wireless LAN equipment, almost always waits until final ratification to release products.

Most observers believe Cisco will wait again. However, the company has placed a Draft 2 802.11n access point in the Wi-Fi Alliance's test bed and is being ambiguous in its public statements.

"We don't comment on products we haven't released yet," said Cisco spokesman Neil Wu Becker. "However, we are the first and only vendor to begin working with the Wi-Fi Alliance test bed, so it is obviously on our radar."

Other vendors, though, are far less ambiguous. They say enterprises will adopt products based on Draft 2 because it is uncontroversial. Draft 3 is expected later this year, but no significant changes to the standard are being publicly discussed.

Even if there are changes, vendors say those changes will be easily upgradeable via software. That, combined with the far superior performance of 802.11n -- it achieves Ethernet-level speeds and has greater range than 802.11g -- make even pre-standard equipment compelling to enterprises, those vendors claim.

"Classically, Wi-Fi is an overlay in the enterprise -- it's been nice in conference rooms and places like that," Cohen said. "But a lot more uses for Wi-Fi are coming out where Wi-Fi is the primary network." That's particularly true in certain types of enterprises, such as hospitals, that have come to depend on Wi-Fi as their primary network and need the faster speeds and coverage, he added.

There are other niches as well, according to Cliff Raskind, an analyst with Strategy Analytics.

"It will appeal to corporate users fixated on video-intensive applications," Raskind said. "It may also be a unique selling point with companies keen on using VoIP soft clients on notebooks."

Another niche is higher education, Brandenburg said. "Some universities will want to say they have the fastest network when they're competing for students."

[Rasputin]

Web's Wonders Still Elude Many Users

A study that indicates that lack of awareness and poor usability are the key barriers to a user's adoption of Internet services from ISPs may provide some relevance to IT managers.

The survey was commissioned by Montreal-based Radialpoint, a provider of managed Internet services to ISPs, and found that nearly half of polled Internet users were unaware of the online security services provided by their ISP. Additionally, almost 70 percent did not know if their ISP provided music or gaming services, and about one third did not know if their ISP provided any services beside Internet access and e-mail.

Scott Plewes, founding partner of usability consulting firm Maskery, said the results of the study are unsurprising. He said that IT managers who create Web-based systems or applications often hear similar feedback from their customers.

"There are usability issues across the board, whether it's with PDAs, Web applications, or other high-tech services," Plewes said. "We see issues with Web applications all the time, partly because it is still a fairly new field from the user interface point-of-view."

Plewes said that while Web applications are becoming more standardized with clear rules on how they are supposed to behave, there are still a lot of aspects where "people are making it up as they go along."

Plewes also stressed the need for IT managers to hire the right personnel when trying to develop user-friendly applications.

"Engineers are great at engineering and developers are great at developing because that is what they're trained to do," Plewes said. "But, if you want a good user-interface, you need somebody that's trained in it."

***k Munroe, director of product management at Radialpoint, agreed with Plewes, saying that he's seen many users continually frustrated when using online tools and services.

"People's experience on the Internet still just isn't a very good one beyond browsing and searching," Munroe said.

He provided an example by citing a conversation he had with a Canadian ISP on their security services.

"I asked them if they knew what percentage of their calls on their security offerings came from install and configuration issues," Munroe said. "They told me it was around 40 percent, which is really mind-boggling to me."

[Rasputin]

Online ID Management Project Progresses

The Liberty Alliance Project has started developing technical specifications for how companies can protect sensitive personal data within their IT systems and securely share that data with other organizations.

Liberty, a consortium that develops identity management standards, completed a market requirements phase where it asked businesses, for example, how they use customer data when a person consents to give up the data, such as a credit-card number.

Those market requirements will be used to develop technical specifications for the Identity Governance Framework (IGF), a set of standard protocols that can be widely used in applications that handle identity information, said Amit Jasuja, vice president of product development for identity management at Oracle Corp., one of Liberty's members. Those technical specifications should be finalized next year.

As those specifications are developed, vendors such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Oracle will begin building applications based on the market requirements and preliminary IGF information, Jasuja said. After six to nine months, a Liberty technical group will work with those vendors to refine that development and close the gaps, he said.

Eventually, IGF will also be compatible with other identity management specifications such as OpenID and WS* and systems such as Project Bandit, Project Higgins and Microsoft Corp.'s CardSpace.

Liberty is also encouraging identity application development projects through openliberty.org, its open-source development site that uses an Apache licensing model, said Brett McDowell, executive director of Liberty.

IGF will eventually be able to incorporate policies and regulations, such as the European Data Protection Initiative and Sarbanes-Oxley in the U.S., into applications that handle identity information, McDowell said.

"Users have been waiting to know there are some real teeth behind the polices that they agreed to with their data," McDowell said.

Identity management has become a hot issue among enterprises in light of data breaches and the increased sharing of sensitive information.