July 2000 Technology Updates1. Digital signatures approvedCongress has passed legislation that would give digital signatures the same legal status as those inked with a pen. The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act was passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress: 87-0 in the Senate, and 426-4 in the House of Representatives. President Clinton is expected to sign it into law. March 1, 2001, will be the first day that electronic signatures are accepted in place of physical ones. It has taken two years to work out the differences between Democrats and Republicans that kept the bill from passing. Democrats were particularly concerned with portions of the bill they felt could lead to abuses by business. The key compromise was a provision that allows consumers to "opt in" -- that is, a consumer must explicitly request the use of digital documents. If the consumer does not "opt in," it means he chooses to deal only with the traditional ink signature. Electronic signatures are seen as important for the continued growth of electronic commerce, especially in the financial and insurance industries. Currently, consumers can shop for mortgages or insurance online, but must physically sign and mail the appropriate documents. The new law would allow a consumer to complete the entire transaction online. A Utah-based software company, iLumin, has already announced that it will launch technologies that will allow users to take advantage of the new law. The technologies are part of iLumin's digital handshake suite. For more information, click on these links:
2. PC Tips - Organizing favorites in IE 5Netscape Navigator and earlier versions of Internet Explorer allow users to create a bookmarks (or favorites) file. Since these files can often run to hundreds or even thousands of entries, Internet Explorer 5 and higher provides more advanced options to help you organize your favorites. To add a site to your favorites list, follow these steps:
Finally, to organize your favorites, follow these steps:
From the Organize Favorites screen you also have the ability to create folders, rename folders and favorites, and delete folders and favorites. 3. J.P. Morgan misses $35 paymentThe Web site of J.P. Morgan, a leading international financial services company, was shut down briefly on June 13, 2000, due to a missed $35 payment. The company, which reported income of over $600 million in the last financial quarter, failed to pay its annual registration fee for the domain name jpmorgan.com. The fee is paid to domain name registrar Network Solutions (NSI). NSI attempted to contact J.P. Morgan on a number of occasions to remind the company about the payment. However, the contact person never received the message or is no longer with J.P. Morgan. A similar incident occurred last year when Microsoft failed to pay for the passport.com domain name. Microsoft uses passport.com to check passwords for its popular Hotmail service. When Hotmail would not work over the Christmas holiday, a computer consultant with no affiliation to Microsoft paid the $35 fee using his credit card. For more information, click on this link:
4. Web privacy protocolAfter three years of development the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) finally launched its Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) specification. P3P is based on extensible markup language (XML) technology on the server side. P3P client technology can be used in electronic wallets, automated form fillers, and wireless Web browsers. The specification provides a method for Web sites to transmit their privacy policies to a P3P-enabled Web browser in a standard format. A user will enter her privacy preferences into her browser. When visiting a site that does not adhere to the user's preferences, a message will appear explaining what information is requested and how it will be used. The user can then decide to provide the information or cancel the interaction with the site. Many privacy advocates are opposed to P3P. A group of privacy organizations, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center, released a report entitled "Pretty Poor Privacy: An Assessment of P3P and Internet Privacy." This group advocates using stronger privacy technologies such as anonymizers, which enable users to browse the Web in a completely anonymous fashion. For more information, click on these links:
5. New hack attackOn June 8, 2000, NETSEC, a network security company with close ties to the National Security Agency, Department of Defense, and Department of Justice, reported a new Trojan horse that could launch a distributed denial-of-service attack (see March 2000 technology updates) on Web sites. A "Trojan horse" is a malicious program disguised as a legitimate program. In this case the Trojan horse, called Serbian Badman, is disguised as a movie file, and it allows its developers to gain full control over infected computers. NETSEC has indicated that over 2,000 home and corporate computers worldwide have been infected with Serbian Badman. Home computers with permanent high-speed connections to the Internet (such as DSL and cable modems) are particularly vulnerable. The number of infected computers is growing daily. Internet security experts fear that the hackers are preparing to launch a distributed denial-of-service attack, like the ones that caused many major Web sites to fail in February (see March 2000 technology updates). For more information, click on these links:
6. Make your computer pay for itselfSoon you may be able to make money by harnessing your computer's downtime. Two new companies, Popular Power and Distributed Science, are planning to pay participants in their distributed computing projects. Distributed computing breaks up complex problems into small pieces. These pieces are sent, over the Internet, to users who have downloaded a special software package from the company. The software senses when your computer has some free time, and processes the small piece of the problem. This piece is then uploaded to the company and a new piece is downloaded. Both companies plan to pay users based on how much data they process, so users with faster computers will make more money. Neither company has signed up its first paying customer yet, and neither has indicated how much it will pay users. Both companies are currently asking users to help beta-test their system. For more information, click on these links:
7. World's fastest computerOn June 29, 2000, IBM unveiled the world's fastest computer. The new machine, called ASCI White, was built for the Department of Energy's Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) in order to simulate nuclear explosions. The computer is capable of performing 12.3 trillion operations per second (teraflops). However, this speed is still far short of the 100 teraflops nuclear weapons experts say are needed to simulate explosions to the accuracy they require. IBM plans to reach that goal by 2004. When that occurs, the U.S. could eliminate all real tests of nuclear weapons. ASCI White is as large as two basketball courts and contains 8,192 processors. Actually, ASCI White is not one unit but over 500 IBM RS 6000 servers connected in parallel. The computer is more than 1,000 times more powerful than the one IBM built to beat World Chess Champion Gary Kasparov in 1997. The system cost the Department of Energy $110 million. For more information, click on these links:
8. AT&T versus PortlandAT&T won an important courtroom battle on June 22, 2000, in its fight with the city of Portland, Oregon. The city was attempting to block AT&T's takeover of the local cable network, which is owned by TCI. AT&T and TCI merged last year. The city wanted AT&T to open up the network to competitors in the broadband Internet access area. In his ruling for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Sidney Thomas cited Federal Communication Commission policy that Internet access is a telecommunications service and not a franchise. If it were a franchise, then the city would be able to regulate it, as it does with cable television. The case may have implications for other localities that are attempting similar regulations. For more information, click on these links:
9. Microsoft anti-trust trial updateOn June 7, 2000, at 4:30 p.m. EDT, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson released his final judgment in the Microsoft anti-trust trial. The judge approved the Justice Department's proposal that Microsoft be broken into two companies. One company would develop and sell Microsoft's operating systems, including Windows. The other company would develop and sell application programs, including Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser. The ruling gives Microsoft four months to submit to the court a divestiture plan. However, Microsoft has stated that it intends to appeal the ruling. Judge Jackson has suspended the restrictions he placed on the company's business practices while the appeals process proceeds. These restrictions would affect how Microsoft deals with computer makers and makers of software that uses the Windows operating systems. For more information, click on these links:
10. Data sanctuaryThe world's first Internet data haven was launched on June 5, 2000. HavenCo has located its Internet operations in the Principality of Sealand. Sealand is located on a former military platform in the middle of the English Channel. The platform, known as Roughs Tower, was created by the British military during World War II to help spot and shoot down enemy planes. After the war the platform was abandoned. In 1967 a former British military officer took up residence on the platform along with his family. He then declared that the platform was the Principality of Sealand and proclaimed himself prince. In 1968 a British court decided that Sealand was not under the jurisdiction of the British government. HavenCo has set up Linux-based servers and satellite Internet connections on the principality. The company is marketing its co-location (locating a site on more than one server) services as a means of insuring privacy and security. This is possible since Sealand cannot be compelled to reveal information requested by a foreign government. Some people believe that this might make HavenCo a haven for illegal activities, such as online gambling and money laundering. The company's services are priced between $500 and $1500 per month. The company also charges a one-time hardware purchase and set-up fee of $10,000. For more information, click on this link:
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