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Issue no. 26, 2002 Published: Jun 28, 2002
KPNQwest to be broken up
ICANN to fight cyber squatters
Spain passes law to regulate internet content
Microsoft plans to toughen up computers
New copy-protection plan allows copying
Scientists develop new method to prevent software piracy
Magnetic wood blocks mobile phone signals
Start-up creates futuristic 3D display
New technology lets computer characters learn how to move
Mozilla nabs surfers from Microsoft
Virtual house of horrors could help treat schizophrenics

KPNQwest to be broken up
KPNQwest is set to be broken up and parts of it sold as early as this weekend, after AT&T on Thursday walked away from making a bid for the bankrupt telecommunications carrier's European network. Selling the network in its entirety was seen as the best chance of realising any remaining value. AT&T said it needed more time to conduct due diligence and refused to put a firm offer on the table by Friday when funds to keep the system lit run out. It is also understood to have found the task of disentangling the operator's assets from upwards of 10 European bankruptcy jurisdictions insurmountable. KPNQwest owns Europe's largest data network, spanning 18 countries and connecting 60 cities. It collapsed amid widening losses which it blamed on a slump in demand for capacity. However, a seven-strong banking syndicate owed €300m and bondholders facing losses of €1.6bn want an inquiry into its accounting practices.
Financial Times Jun 27, 2002	back to top

ICANN to fight cyber squatters
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said at its quarterly meeting in Bucharest on Thursday that it was close to adopting a new system that would help the fight against cyber squatting. The two measures could be ratified by the ICANN board on Friday. The first proposal, which would establish a 30-day grace period for current owners to renew their contracts, received widespread approval. The measure seeks to address the problem of cyber squatters registering expired domains before the original owners renew their contracts. The second proposal is to establish a waiting list for coveted domains that become newly available to the public. Under the proposal a bidder would pay a fee to get first dibs on any newly available domains. A controversial vote on whether to retool the make-up of ICANN's executive board to include more government delegates, plus security and technical experts, is slated for Friday.
News24 / Reuters Jun 28, 2002	back to top

Spain passes law to regulate internet content
Spain's parliament on Thursday passed a law regulating electronic commerce which makes internet service providers more responsible for content on their pages and requires them to store data on clients for at least a year. The legislation, designed to bring Spain into line with EU guidelines, is expected to take effect after the summer. The Law on the Information Society and Electronic Commerce (LSSI) aims to provide the same legal framework for electronic transactions as for physical business deals. It also bans spam, the mass transmission of advertising via the internet. The legislation establishes penalties of between 3,000 and 600,000 euros, depending on the offence.
Yahoo / Reuters Jun 27, 2002	back to top

Microsoft plans to toughen up computers
The first blueprints for a Microsoft PC system built around security and data-protection have been revealed. Future versions of MS Windows will be designed to run only digitally signed code, to stop hackers uploading malicious programs and to prevent computer viruses from spreading. The system will also secure documents using encryption, and authenticate users and companies to each other via the internet through public key cryptography. The company's software designers say the system should even automatically bin unsolicited email, or 'spam'. But the system architecture will also make it easier for the music and film industry to control the way copyright-protected content can be used on a computer. A song could be configured with embedded code to permit personal copying but not widespread distribution, for example. Intel and AMD have already agreed to design new hardware to support the design, which Microsoft says could be available in 2004.
New Scientist Jun 24, 2002	back to top

New copy-protection plan allows copying
In the ongoing battle against illegal copying of software, US start-up Smarte Solutions is working with software publishers to incorporate its technology into their wares. Unlike existing copy-protection schemes, which prevent CD burners from copying a disk, SmarteCD allows the user to burn a copy of the disc. The copied software will appear to run normally, until the program reaches a pre-determined point. Then the application will halt and present users with an invitation to purchase a legal, fully functional version. Publishers of a game, for example, could limit the copied disc to one level. The idea is that by then, the consumer will already be hooked on the program and will buy a legal version to keep using it. SmarteCD uses 'polymorphic' code that executes in a different way each place it is installed, preventing useful distribution of any successful hacking attempts. If a hacker finds out how to break it, it will only work for that one copy.
ZDNet Jun 27, 2002	back to top

Scientists develop new method to prevent software piracy
Computer scientists at Perdue University, Indiana, USA, hope their new approach to computer security will help to overcome hackers who can crack a single password and copy software illegally. Instead of relying on a password to protect software from being copied, the new approach uses hundreds of 'guards' at different points in the software code. This guard approach ties the security measures into the software's operation. It is no longer enough to hack past one point such as currently is the case. The guards will notice what the intruder has done and prevent him from using the program. One strategy might be to add 100 guards to a piece of software. But only 10 would be on active duty at any given time, and the membership would constantly change. This 'sidelining' of the guards into tiny pieces prevents the security measures from taking up more memory in the computer and slowing it down.
CBC News Jun 26, 2002	back to top

Magnetic wood blocks mobile phone signals
Magnetic wood could be a major plank in the battle against noisy cellphone users. The high-tech material absorbs microwave radio signals, making it impossible to use a mobile phone in any room lined with it. The wooden panels would be useful in cinemas or theatres in order to block signals, without having to resort to signal jammers. These are illegal in some countries and also cause wider problems because their signals can spill out of the building they are covering, interfering with other people's calls. The magnetic wood was developed by a team of electronics engineers at Iwate University in Morioka, Japan. They chose wood as their preferred blocking material because it offers more natural, aesthetic options for interior design. The wood contains fine particles of a magnetic material called nickel-zinc ferrite. When an electromagnetic wave hits the ferrite particles, the magnetic part of the wave is absorbed.
New Scientist Jun 26, 2002	back to top

Start-up creates futuristic 3D display
The ideal computer display of today may be flat. But US start-up Actuality Systems has been perfecting a type of 3D display with a basketball-size glass dome that connects to an ordinary workstation to display 3D models and animations. Perspecta uses a collection of proprietary algorithms to slice 3D data into a format that can be replicated in three spatial dimensions. A projector then displays the data at 5,000 frames per second onto a rotating screen within the transparent sphere, in such a way that the eye sees a 3D image. The image comprises 198 two-dimensional slices, with a 768-by-768-pixel resolution for each slice. The image is displayed using a 1600 MIPS digital signal processor with a 24Hz volume refresh. Each 25-cm-diameter image contains 100 million 'volume pixels', or 'voxels' and can be viewed from any angle.
ZDNet Jun 27, 2002	back to top

New technology lets computer characters learn how to move
Computer game characters in the future could be truly interactive, reacting to your movements and changes in the virtual environment. Based on prize-winning work carried out largely at Oxford University, UK, researchers at NaturalMotion have developed a new way of animating virtual characters in games or films. In traditional computer animation, all a characters moves have to be animated beforehand. This means that a character can only react in a set of pre-determined ways. The new animation technique, called Active Character Technology, works using a process of artificial evolution, so that a character learns how to move. A simplified model of the brain is built into the character, connected to the virtual muscles and instructed how to walk. NaturalMotion believes its technique could revolutionise the film industry, allowing animators to create lifelike characters far more quickly and cheaply than at the moment.
BBC News Jun 25, 2002	back to top

Mozilla nabs surfers from Microsoft
Microsoft's iron grip on the web browser market has slipped ever so slightly since the release of new products from rivals Mozilla and Netscape Communications, web researcher OneStat.com reported Monday. For the month ended June 21, 95.3 per cent of all web surfers used various versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. That is down 1.3 per cent from the previous month, Amsterdam-based OneStat said. Netscape 7.0 was used by 0.3 per cent of the sample and helped push the browser's overall showing to 3.4 per cent, a gain of 0.6 per cent. Mozilla 1.0, released two weeks ago as the first public version of the open-source browser, was used by 0.4 per cent of the sample. However, the pace of adoption for Microsoft's latest version of the browser, IE 6.0, rose faster than all of its competitors combined. OneStat's research is based on a sample of 2 million visitors divided into 20,000 visitors from 100 countries each day.
ZDNet Jun 24, 2002	back to top

Virtual house of horrors could help treat schizophrenics
Psychiatrists at the University of Queensland, Australia, have created a virtual reality room with moving walls and an abusive TV to help treat patients with schizophrenia. They want to use it to mimic common hallucinations and convince patients they are not real experiences. The team admit some schizophrenics may find the virtual hallucinations frightening. But they hope the simulation will help patients realise they suffer from an illness which needs treatment. Some patients hear their TV telling them to commit suicide. Others think they can see objects morphing into faces or people. Psychiatrists will be able to manipulate the virtual living room to create different hallucinations alongside a soundtrack of abusive running commentary. A prototype simulation is already helping doctors and patients' relatives get a better understanding of the illness. Researchers eventually hope to model hallucinations on environments familiar to individual patients.
Ananova Jun 26, 2002	back to top