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Issue no. 46, 2002 Published: Dec 13, 2002
EU drops leased line inquiry
Compaq accused of breaking EU export laws
XML encryption specs approved
Teenager fights DVD piracy charges
Eye microchip could save sight
Gateway networks 'supercomputer'
Software gambler takes on the tipsters
Smiley man hopes to end spam by charging the spammers
ISPs swamped by web take-down orders
Microsoft to offer Linux software?
Sexism 'rife' in cyberspace
French put a name to the @ sign

EU drops leased line inquiry
The European Commission says it has closed its investigation into the telecom sector's pricing of leased lines after prices dropped up to 40 per cent following the start of the inquiry in July 1999. The Commission said it had initially opened its investigation because prices for leased lines, dedicated wholesale high-speed connections, were high and differed in the EU's 15 member states. However, three years later, the probe into the sector produced a significant decrease in the price for international telecom leased lines across the EU, the Commission said. Prices for lines of two megabytes a second, the most commonly used bandwidth, fell by 30 to 40 per cent on average. Leased lines are a key part of the Commission's plans for telecoms liberalisation within the EU. They allow firms to interact over a direct, high-bandwidth connection and provide a short-cut to improving services without installing new infrastructure, the Commission said.
CNET / Reuters Dec 11, 2002	back to top

Compaq accused of breaking EU export laws
Compaq's key Irish operation was the site of anti-war demonstrations last week following claims that the company has been illegally exporting software used in the development and maintenance of US and French nuclear weapons programmes. The company has been accused of contravening European export laws, and Ireland's Department of Enterprise has launched an official enquiry into the allegations. It has asked Compaq to clarify what work it is carrying out within its High Performance Technical Computing (HPTC) group, as well as the end use of the software and the nature of its exports. HPTC is responsible for building tailor-made supercomputers, including operating software, for the US and French nuclear weapons programmes. The systems are used for the simulated testing of nuclear weapons. If the group is found to have contravened EU export laws, Compaq will lose its funding from the Irish Development Authority.
VNUnet UK Dec 11, 2002	back to top

XML encryption specs approved
The web's leading standards group approved on Tuesday two XML encryption specifications, a move that promises to boost the development of secure web services. The two specs, XML Encryption Syntax and Processing and Decryption Transform for XML Signature, will enable web pages using XML to encrypt parts of a document being exchanged between websites, the World Wide Web Consortium said. The W3C's specifications make it possible to encrypt selected sections or elements of a document - for instance, a credit card number entered in an XML form. The new specifications are expected to help speed the development of web services built on XML. The W3C's encryption work comes as part of a larger push to publish standards relevant to the web services trend. The consortium earlier this year weathered criticism that it was slow to develop web services, but has since published a wide array of web services-related drafts.
ZDNet Dec 10, 2002	back to top

Teenager fights DVD piracy charges
A teenager pitted against the film industry has pleaded not guilty in a landmark trial in Norway into copyright laws on the internet. Jon Johansen is charged with developing a software programme to allow internet users to get round copy-protected DVDs and make unauthorised copies of films. Johansen was only 15 years old when he wrote and distributed the DeCSS programme, which is one of many available on the net to break DVD protection codes. It is estimated that around 5,000 copies of DeCSS have been downloaded from the web since it was made available in 1999. Johansen claims he wrote the program so that he could watch films on his Linux-based computer. If found guilty Johansen could face up to two years in jail or be ordered to pay fines or compensation.
BBC News Dec 10, 2002	back to top

Eye microchip could save sight
Scientists are developing an electronic eye implant which they believe could help millions of people to see again. US scientists believe they could have a human implant within three years. The microchip, which acts as an artificial retina, would be surgically implanted into the eye. The electronic device stimulates surrounding cells that have not been damaged and thus enables sight to be restored. The 4mm microchip is attached to a type of silicone called polydimethyl- siloxane (PDMS). This substance is flexible and can conform to the curved shape of the retina without damaging surrounding tissue. Researchers at the University of California have already successfully tested the implant on dogs and are now developing a microchip that could be used on humans.
BBC News Dec 07, 2002	back to top

Gateway networks 'supercomputer'
Gateway is planning to network all its computers on display in its US retail stores into a single supercomputer. The company plans to sell the combined processing power to corporate customers in need of extra computing punch. The PCs will continue to run demos for customers, while in the background they will be working on tasks such as drug design or geoscience research. Gateway is the latest company to use grid computing, where processing power is bought and sold just like utilities such as electricity. Analysts are undecided whether Gateway will attract many customers. But the feeling is that since Gateway already has thousands of computers sitting largely idle on display shelves, the grid computing idea has nothing to lose. With 7,800 PCs, each with an average processing power of 2GHz, Gateway says it has about 14 teraflops of computing power. It is offering its supercomputer function for an introductory price of 15 cents per computer hour, plus set-up fees.
VNUnet Uk / Washington Post Dec 10, 2002	back to top

Software gambler takes on the tipsters
Alan McCabe, an IT researcher at Australia's James Cook University, has developed a software-based results tipster for the Australian Rugby League and the program outperforms the best human tipsters. McCabe Artificially Intelligent Tipster - MAIT - is a spin-off from research into handwriting recognition. But instead of being fed data on writing shape and pen stroke velocity, MAIT uses a neural network to learn which features of a team's performance make them winners. A neural network is a computer system that can learn which combinations of inputs (representing team performance statistics, say) lead to a particular output (such as a team's chance of winning). Crucially, the network's inputs can be 'weighted', so the influence of each can be increased or decreased depending on how significant its contribution is. Across the season, MAIT is outperforming human tipsters and getting its predictions right more than 66 per cent of the time.
New Scientist Dec 11, 2002	back to top

Smiley man hopes to end spam by charging the spammers
The man who invented the internet smiley has developed a protocol that charges spammers for wasting your time. Scott Fahlman's protocol, which was published in IBM's Systems Journal, calls for new phones and email software that would require fees to accept incoming messages. The charge could be waived for welcome email and calls at the touch of a button, but collected for unsolicited spam and intrusive telemarketing calls. Friends, family and frequent known callers could be given 'interrupt tokens' that would allow them to bypass the system. Fahlman claims that the program would all but eliminate spam and telemarketing, and that any messages that slipped through the net would be seen as 'a windfall rather than a nuisance'.
VNUnet UK Dec 12, 2002	back to top

ISPs swamped by web take-down orders
Europe's internet service providers (ISPs) say they are overwhelmed by a barrage of requests to take from their networks websites that violate copyright or contain defamatory statements. Under the E-Commerce Directive, an EU law enacted this year, ISPs are compelled to remove from their computer servers websites that carry copyright-protected materials or contain libels or so-called hate speech. In the case of copyright concerns, the law is primarily designed to protect media companies who have seen all manner of protected materials appear on websites free of charge. Under the directive, a media company needs only to notify an ISP of an offending site and the ISP is compelled to take it down. But ISPs have complained that the law gives copyright owners broad powers to take down an ISP customers' websites. Plus, they argue, it requires the ISP to make a snap, and potentially costly, judgement about copyright violations. The ISPs want legal protections in case they remove a site that turns out to be law-abiding.
Yahoo / Reuters Dec 11, 2002	back to top

Microsoft to offer Linux software?
In a major strategy shift, Microsoft will introduce software based on the Linux open source operating system in 2004 for web services and server software, market researcher META Group predicted on Monday. Microsoft, which denied that it had any such plans, is facing a growing threat from the open source software standard as it gains share in the corporate server market used to manage networks and data. META Group predicted that Linux will be used on nearly half of new servers by 2007, up from its current share of 15 to 20 per cent. 'We believe that, beginning in late 2004, Microsoft will begin moving some of its proprietary application enablers to the Linux environment; this will gradually include the major Microsoft back-office products, such as SQL Server, IIS, and Exchange,' META Group said. In a further shift, Microsoft will also re-price or separate its Windows server operating system 'so that it can be favourably compared against ''free'' Linux', META Group said.
CNN / Reuters Dec 10, 2002	back to top

Sexism 'rife' in cyberspace
The battle between the sexes is being carried over to cyberspace, research shows. A survey conducted by search engine AltaVista found that male chauvinism is alive and well on the internet, with 80 per cent of men claiming to be better surfers than their female partners. Men are also far more likely to be backseat drivers, interfering while their partners surf the web. And just as road rage is often the preserve of the male of the species so too net rage seems more likely to happen to men. In fact, women are overtaking men in many areas of net use such as e-mail and searching for health-related information. They are also more likely to shop online than men, though male shoppers tend to be bigger spenders. But for both sexes, finding what you want quickly on the net can be a tiresome experience.
BBC News Dec 11, 2002	back to top

French put a name to the @ sign
The General Committee on Terminology in France has formally dubbed the @ sign as an arobase and has published its decision in the government's official bulletin. The word derives from an ancient measurement that used the same symbol of the letter 'a' surrounded by a circle. According to the committee, arobase derives from arrobe, itself a derivative of the Arabic ar-rub, meaning 'quarter', an ancient Spanish and Portuguese unit of capacity and weight. The committee has already attempted to come up with French equivalents for a number of web terms. Five years ago it failed to have the word mel adopted instead of 'email'. But it has succeeded with other terms, including site for website, and portail for portal.
VNUnet UK / AFP Dec 10, 2002	back to top