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TOP STORIES FOR WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2003 DARPA Funding PAL Development WTO to Investigate U.S. Antigambling Measures Identity Theft Skyrockets AND Boston College, MIT Fight RIAA Subpoenas Can Movie Studios Curb Piracy with Courtesy? PC-Based BuyMusic Offers Low Rates DARPA FUNDING PAL DEVELOPMENT The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is awarding $29 million in research grants to develop an intelligent electronic assistant. Of the total, $7 million will go to Carnegie Mellon University to develop a so-called Perceptive Assistant that Learns (PAL), with the balance going to several other groups to build a wartime PAL. The device is intended to be "smart" enough to notify attendees, for example, if a meeting is rescheduled or to change its user's travel plans in the event of a schedule change. DARPA officials argued that such a device could be very helpful to military commanders who have large groups of support staff reporting substantial amounts of information. Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists expressed doubt that such a project legitimately falls under the purview of DARPA. Of the notion that the PAL device would organize users' e-mail and allocate office space, Aftergood said, "DARPA obviously takes a very broad view of its charter." Wired News, 23 July 2003 http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,59724,00.html WTO TO INVESTIGATE U.S. ANTIGAMBLING MEASURES The World Trade Organization is investigating a complaint filed by the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda arguing that U.S. laws meant to stifle online gambling violate international trade agreements. Antigua and Barbuda has long courted the online-gaming business in an effort to minimize the country's dependence on tourism, and Chief Foreign Affairs Representative Ronald M. Sanders said his country strictly regulates its online gaming industry. Because many online gambling operations are not within the jurisdiction of U.S. laws, the U.S. government has tried to control online gambling by making it illegal for U.S. banks and other financial institutions to do business with offshore gambling organizations. U.S. officials said the antigambling laws are not subject to the terms of the trade agreements. Online gamblers in the United States reportedly constitute more than half of the global Internet gambling market. Washington Post, 21 July 2003 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24490-2003Jul21.html IDENTITY THEFT SKYROCKETS Research firm Gartner Inc. reports that identity theft has risen 79 percent over the past year. Identity theft has become a significant problem in some parts of the world, in part due to how much more readily accessible personal information is now than in the past. The research indicates that 3.4 percent of the U.S. population has fallen victim to a scam and that half of those incidents were perpetrated by friends, colleagues, or relatives. Recently the FBI and consumer groups warned of a wave of new scams involving fake e-mails purporting to come from legitimate e-commerce Web sites. While individuals should take responsibility for protecting their personal information, authorities believe that institutions need to be more careful with personal information. Avivah Litan of Gartner cautioned that "Many banks, credit card issuers, cell phone service providers, and other enterprises that extend financial credit to consumers don't recognize most identity theft fraud for what it is ... [which] causes a disincentive to fix the problem with the urgency it requires." BBC, 21 July 2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3085277.stm AND ***************************************************** BOSTON COLLEGE, MIT FIGHT RIAA SUBPOENAS Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have filed legal objections to subpoenas from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The two institutions argue that civil law procedures require subpoenas to be filed in a court within 100 miles of those being served with the subpoenas. In this case, RIAA subpoenas sent to the institutions were issued by a Washington, D.C., court. Boston College and MIT also argue that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) guarantees them sufficient time to notify the affected students that someone has requested disclosure of information about them. The points at issue are purely procedural, however, because the motions filed by the two institutions indicate their agreement with the RIAA's right to the requested information. The RIAA nonetheless disputed the motions, saying the subpoenas can be issued from any federal court and that FERPA "could not trump the university's obligation to respond to a DMCA subpoena." A spokeswoman for DePaul University, which was also served with an RIAA subpoena, said several people had access to the computer in question, and the university, therefore, is unable to answer the subpoena. Chronicle of Higher Education, 23 July 2003 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/07/2003072301t.htm CAN MOVIE STUDIOS CURB PIRACY WITH COURTESY? The movie industry has launched a campaign that adopts a friendly tone to discourage people from downloading pirated copies of films from the Internet. Industry officials hope that, in addition to an educational Web site, television and in-theater ads will appeal to people's sympathy for how piracy affects the livelihood of the average person by featuring the likes of industry makeup artists and set painters. A "Digital Citizenship" Junior Achievement program will educate students about the history and implications of copyright infringement and encourage them to spread the word to peers that it's both wrong and illegal. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has yet to encounter the piracy problems the recording industry has, mostly because the technology cannot yet support making decent copies of movies, and is considering proactive strategies such as making films available online through legitimate services. Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said that while consumers may not be ready to get their movies from the Internet, "when they are, the answer will be to offer them a compelling legitimate alternative, not telling them to behave themselves." San Jose Mercury News, 22 July 2003 http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6357756.htm PC-BASED BUYMUSIC OFFERS LOW RATES Recently launched BuyMusic.com, a PC-based Internet music download site, offers more than 300,000 songs from five major recording labels for as little as 79 cents per song and $7.95 for a full album. Whereas other PC-based online music services such as Rhapsody require users to pay a monthly access fee, BuyMusic is based on the Apple iTunes pay-as-you-go model. Although the service offers more and cheaper songs than does iTunes, it doesn't offer the same song portability due to licensing restrictions and the Windows Media format. Because BuyMusic CEO Scott Blum wasn't able to strike the same uniform licensing deals with recording companies and artists as Apple's Steve Jobs, there are different restrictions on how frequently songs may be burned onto CDs or copied to other PCs or portable devices. All songs can be burned onto CDs at least once. BuyMusic's entry into the online music market is expected to prompt digital music retailers to renegotiate more lenient terms with the record companies. Wired News, 22 July 2003 http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59718,00.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 "EQ" and "EDUCAUSE Review," books, and other materials dealing with the impacts and implications of information technology in higher education. 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