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TOP STORIES FOR MONDAY, OCTOBER 07, 2002 Report Recommends Plan for Privacy and Security Microsoft Adds Content Management to .Net Stable Teething Pains for .Mac AND Webcasters, Record Industry Reach Deal on Royalties User Breaks Encryption Key New Marketing Strategy for Anti-Virus Company REPORT RECOMMENDS PLAN FOR PRIVACY AND SECURITY A report is expected to be issued today from a group of information technology and national security experts recommending a set of government actions that it says would increase national security while protecting personal privacy. "Protecting America's Freedom in an Information Age" argues that President Bush mush establish guidelines for the collection and sharing of data, and that these responsibilities should fall under the planned Department of Homeland Security rather than under the FBI. The report says that unless state and local governments share data they collect with federal authorities, we will suffer intrusions of surveillance and data collections without seeing improvements in national security. The Bush Administration, while not involved in the production of the report, was said to be impressed with the work and open to its suggestions. New York Times, 7 October 2002 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/national/07HOME.html MICROSOFT ADDS CONTENT MANAGEMENT TO .NET STABLE Microsoft is expected today to release Content Management Server 2002, the latest application in its .Net lineup. Content management software for Web-based applications allows businesses to record and track individual preferences of users and to customize content for them. The new application will compete against similar products from Documentum, Interwoven, Vignette, and others and joins BizTalk Server 2002, Commerce Server 2002, and SharePoint Portal Server 2001 in the stable of .Net applications. Analysts noted that the release comes at a time when consumers are increasingly willing to pay for custom content on the Web. ZDNet, 7 October 2002 http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-960943.html TEETHING PAINS FOR .MAC Apple Computer's new .Mac service on Monday experienced its second outage in as many weeks. .Mac is a pay service designed to replace the discontinued iTools offering, which was free. Customers have access to a similar set of tools with .Mac as with iTools, including e-mail, online storage, and Web hosting, but many customers have been reluctant to begin paying for a service so similar to what they used to get for free. Apple has extended the deadline for current iTools customers to convert their accounts to .Mac and receive a discounted rate of $49 for the first year. For other customers, and after the new conversion deadline of October 14, .Mac service costs $99 per year. A note on Apple's Web site apologizes for the outages and assures users that no data or e-mail was lost due to the glitch. CNET, 7 October 2002 http://news.com.com/2100-1040-961055.html AND ***************************************************** WEBCASTERS, RECORD INDUSTRY REACH DEAL ON ROYALTIES Small Webcasters and the recording industry have reached a tentative agreement on royalty payments just two weeks before the royalties decided by the librarian of congress were to go into effect. Under the new deal, small Webcasters would pay between 8 and 12 percent of revenue rather than the per-song rate set by the librarian of congress. The agreement does not define "small" Webcaster, but earlier discussions placed the cut-off at $500,000 of annual revenue. Large Webcasters would still be subject to the per-song rate. The two sides are expected to ask Congress to approve the plan, but a new dispute, this time between record companies and musicians, threatens to derail the agreement. An old agreement stipulated that after legal fees were paid, remaining royalties would be given to musicians. The deal reached last week makes no specific guarantee about how royalties will be distributed. Reuters, 6 October 2002 http://news.com.com/2100-1023-960944.html USER BREAKS ENCRYPTION KEY Four years after Distributed.net, RSA Data Securities, and the Free Software Foundation put up a $10,000 prize to anyone who could decode a 64-bit encryption key, a user in Japan has succeeded in cracking the key. When the challenge was first issued, organizers thought it might take 100 years to break the key. David McNett, president of Distributed.net, said that although the amount of time and resources that it did take to solve the challenge indicates that 64-bit encryption is relatively secure, users should consider the timeliness of their secrets. If you have information that must be kept secret indefinitely, 64-bit is not sufficient. McNett said that 128-bit encryption is practically impossible to break. Wired News, 7 October 2002 http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,55584,00.html NEW MARKETING STRATEGY FOR ANTI-VIRUS COMPANY Trend Micro Inc., maker of anti-virus software, unveiled a new program to lure and keep customers of its products. In the new program, premium support customers can report new viruses to the company and will receive an updated virus pattern file within two hours. If Trend Micro fails to deliver the file in time, it pays a fine to the customer. Virus pattern files are used by anti-virus software to identify viruses on users' systems. Officials from Trend Micro said the distinction between identification and removal is key. The goal of the new program is to decrease the time it takes for users to detect viruses on their systems. Removing those viruses is a separate step and requires additional work from Micro Trend developers. IDG, 7 October 2002 http://www.idg.net/ic_954204_1794_9-10000.html ***************************************************** 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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