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TOP STORIES FOR FRIDAY, MAY 17, 2002 Privacy Bill Clears Committee Congressman Hopes to Reclaim Fair Use NEC Assumes Top Spot for Supercomputer Speed AND ACLU Says Facial Recognition is Unreliable Fingerprint Readers Easily Fooled New Group Aims to Stabilize Software Journal Boycott Falls Short of Goal PRIVACY BILL CLEARS COMMITTEE Despite strong opposition from Senate Republicans and many U.S. corporations, the Senate Commerce Committee approved an online privacy bill presented by Sen. Fritz Hollings (D.-S.C.). The bill would require online companies to obtain specific permission to release consumers' personal information such as medical records or financial data. Companies in violation of the law would face fines and the possiblity of lawsuits from consumers whose information was improperly released. Republicans in the Senate have hinted that it will be difficult to get the bill to the Senate floor. Senate Democrats said U.S. companies should offer American citizens the same privacy protections they offer the European Union (EU), which has arranged a Safe Harbor agreement with 180 U.S. companies to protect the privacy of EU citizens. Washington Post, 16 May 2002 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28221-2002May16.html CONGRESSMAN HOPES TO RECLAIM FAIR USE Rick Boucher (D.-Va.) plans to introduce legislation that would override the section of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that makes it a crime to circumvent any anti-copying technology. Critics of the DMCA have complained since it was passed in 1998 that the law goes too far in restricting users' rights to content they legally own, giving that control to copyright owners. Under the current law, if someone defeated copy protections to make an otherwise legal copy of a CD for his own use, the act of circumventing the protection mechanism is a crime. Under Boucher's proposal, defeating copyright protections would only be a crime if it was done with the intent to make illegal copies of the content or otherwise infringe on the copyright. IDG, 17 May 2002 http://www.idg.net/ic_863105_1794_9-10000.html NEC ASSUMES TOP SPOT FOR SUPERCOMPUTER SPEED According to tests conducted by IDC, a new supercomputer built by NEC is the world's fastest, bettering the old champion, IBM's ASCI White, by a larger than expected margin. Called the Earth Simulator, the new machine scored 40,000 points--compared to 4,900 for ASCI White--on the test, which covers a range of performance parameters, not just speed. Other measures of computing performance have been criticized for focusing on the theoretical number of calculations the processor can perform per unit of time. IDC's new ratings are based on the processor, the memory system, and scalability. NewsFactor Network, 17 May 2002 http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17808.html AND ***************************************************** ACLU SAYS FACIAL RECOGNITION IS UNRELIABLE The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which opposes the use of facial-recognition technology for security purposes, said this week that tests at Palm Beach International Airport show the tools to be unreliable. The ACLU said early reports indicate an effectiveness of about 47 percent in identifying volunteer subjects, and this number goes lower when people wear glasses or turn their heads away from cameras. The system tested is from Visionics Corp. In another test of facial-recognition technology at Boston's Logan Airport, officials from Visionics and Viisage Technology said their systems were effective more than 90 percent of the time, as reported by CNET (http://news.com.com/2100-1017-915832.html). An official from Visionics said a test at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport showed success rates of between 85 and 93 percent. Newsbytes, 16 May 2002 http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176621.html FINGERPRINT READERS EASILY FOOLED In a study presented this week at a conference in Korea, researchers showed that fake fingers made of gelatin can deceive fingerprint readers most of the time. Two methods were demonstrated. In the first method, an artificial fingerprint was made with the consent of the subject. For the second method, a latent fingerprint, one left on a glass, for example, can be used to create a gelatin finger that is often mistaken by readers for an actual finger. Both methods successfully bypassed fingerprint security devices about 80 percent of the time. An official from Digital Persona, maker of fingerprint-recognition technology, said the results are not indicative of how effective fingerprint readers can be in security screenings. Other factors, he said, can be used in conjunction with the print itself to increase accuracy, including body heat and pulse. CNET, 16 May 2002 http://news.com.com/2100-1001-915580.html NEW GROUP AIMS TO STABILIZE SOFTWARE The costs in lost productivity due to software bugs have been estimated at $175 billion for businesses last year. According to Ken Jacobs, vice president at Oracle, "We have to bring software engineering the kind of maturity we have in building bridges and buildings. We don't expect buildings to fall down every day." To that end, a new group at Carnegie Mellon University hopes to establish business practices and tools to help produce stable, reliable, and secure software. The Sustainable Computing Consortium will include Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco, and NASA, as well as other corporations. The consortium will hold its first meeting this summer to identify the most pressing matters and set an agenda. CNET, 16 May 2002 http://news.com.com/2100-1001-915959.html JOURNAL BOYCOTT FALLS SHORT OF GOAL Despite having the signatures of more than 30,000 academics, a group pushing for more access to academic content has so far had little impact on the publishing of journals. The Public Library of Science in April 2001 called for academics to boycott jourals that do not put their content online after six months without a fee to access it. But according to directors of the project, few of the signatories have stopped sumbitting to those journals, subscribing to them, or acting as editors. The group now plans to begin publishing its own set of scholarly journals, allowing academics to continue publishing but ensuring that content will be available online within six months. Chronicle of Higher Education, 16 May 2002 http://chronicle.com/free/2002/05/2002051601t.htm ***************************************************** EDUPAGE INFORMATION To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your settings, visit http://www.educause.edu/pub/edupage/edupage.html Or, you can subscribe or unsubscribe by sending e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SUBSCRIBE Edupage YourFirstName YourLastName To UNSUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SIGNOFF Edupage If you have subscription problems, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For past issues of Edupage or information about translations of Edupage into other languages, visit http://www.educause.edu/pub/edupage/edupage.html ***************************************************** OTHER EDUCAUSE PUBLICATIONS EDUCAUSE publishes periodicals, including "EDUCAUSE Quarterly" and "EDUCAUSE Review," books, and other materials dealing with the impacts and implications of information technology in higher education. 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