Message-Id: <55206A473154D011924D0020AFF7ACB527C8F9@mail1.oulan.ou.edu>
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 09:14:59 -0500
From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@ou.edu'" <it-fyi@ou.edu>
Subject: Edupage, 28 September 1997
> ************************************************************
> Edupage, 28 September 1997. Edupage, a summary of news about
> information technology, is provided three times a week as a service by
> Educom, a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and
> universities seeking to transform education through the use of
> information technology.
> ************************************************************
>
> TOP STORIES
> Internet Needs More, Not Less Security Says Barksdale
> FBI Says Privacy "Extremists" Are "Elitist"
> Ringing In A New Web Strategy
> Apple Streamlines Sales Procedures
>
> ALSO
> Invisible Home Network
> Forget Windows -- Think Hyperbolic Tree
> Spam Wars
> Serf's Up!
>
> INTERNET NEEDS MORE, NOT LESS SECURITY SAYS BARKSDALE
> Netscape CEO James Barksdale says encryption legislation proposed by
> FBI Director Louis Freeh could trigger the downfall of U.S. dominance
> in the software industry. The FBI-backed Oxley-Manton amendment would
> "require makers of encryption software to provide the government with
> immediate access to the information in a computer or network without
> the knowledge of the owner or user of the computer." Barksdale says
> that rather than reducing crime by giving law enforcement officials to
> digital transmissions, the legislation likely would result in more
> crime: "By taking away encryption as we know it today, the FBI
> proposal would expose computer users to assault by hackers intent on
> economic espionage, blackmail and public humiliation. At a recent
> congressional hearing, one witness testified that with the $1 billion
> and 20 people using existing technology, he could effectively shut
> down the nation's information infrastructure, including all computer,
> phone and banking networks... The FBI cannot catch every hacker. But
> there will be fewer and fewer of them trying to penetrate sensitive
> networks if those networks are adequately protected and communications
> secured through the use of strong encryption." (Wall Street Journal
> 26 Sep 97)
>
> FBI SAYS PRIVACY "EXTREMISTS" ARE "ELITIST"
> Alan McDonald, a senior executive with the Federal Bureau of
> nvestigation, says that "extremist" positions on electronic encryption
> are a threat to normal law enforcement and are elitist and
> nondemocratic. Insisting that the United States had remained true to
> the Constitution and to a system of ordered liberties, McDonald says:
> "When people don't know much about electronic surveillance, they are
> fearful of it. But when they know Congress passed laws and the Supreme
> Court reviewed them and that there are numerous constraints and
> procedures, then it makes sense to them. It seems rational and
> balanced." (TechWire 25 Sep 97)
>
> RINGING IN A NEW WEB STRATEGY
> Businesses are beginning to use Web rings -- clusters of Web sites
> united by a theme or topic -- to increase visibility for their
> individual Internet endeavors. "I would call Web rings a gimmick,"
> says a member of the Horse Products Web Ring, "but it gives possible
> customers another way to find and view Web sites." The trend is
> rapidly gaining momentum -- in January, webring.com, a directory for
> Web rings, listed about 1,000 rings. By September, it listed 18,000,
> encompassing some 200,000 Web sites.
> Webring.com estimates that its number of "hits" is going up at a rate
> of 22% per quarter. (Investor's Business Daily 26 Sep 97)
>
> APPLE STREAMLINES SALES PROCEDURES
> Apple Computer won't be selling its computers directly any time soon,
> but the company does plan to simplify how it sells its computers to
> dealers. Apple will add 100 people who will coordinate sales with
> dealers in an effort to reduce unsold inventory and to limit how much
> of that inventory can be returned to the company. It also will allow
> more dealers to purchase directly from the company, lowering the sales
> volume threshold from $20 million to $2 million for dealers, and $5
> million for retailers. (New York
> Times 27 Sep 97)
>
> =================================================
>
> INVISIBLE HOME NETWORK
> Scientists at IBM's Watson Research Center have developed a radio
> frequency wireless transmission system that can send and receive data
> without errors at speeds up to 10 megabits per second -- a performance
> comparable to many wired Ethernet networks used in corporate offices.
> The new technology, which is considerably faster than the 2-Mbps
> capabilities of most wireless networking systems today, is key to the
> development of future home networks that could run a host of "smart"
> appliances. The key to IBM's breakthrough is new algorithms and codes
> that eliminate the multipath, or signal, reflection problems that have
> plagued indoor RF systems in the past. (Popular Science Oct 97)
>
> FORGET WINDOWS -- THINK HYPERBOLIC TREE
> Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) director John Seely Brown says
> windows-based interfaces are no longer appropriate for today's complex
> software programs: "It's like walking around with two toilet-paper
> tubes on your eyes. There's no sense of things moving smoothly from
> the periphery into your center of vision." In response, a PARC
> spinoff called InXight has designed a new user interface called
> Hyperbolic Tree. Rather than using pull-down menus and a series of
> windows for organization, the Hyperbolic Tree approach works much like
> dragging a magnifying glass over a circular organizational structure,
> with parts of the structure expanding or shrinking depending on where
> the mouse pointer alights. "It was designed with a deep understanding
> of human perception and cognition," says Brown. (Business Week 29 Sep
> 97)
>
> SPAM WARS
> A Texas county district judge has entered a temporary injunction
> against a California man who sent large quantities of unsolicited
> commercial e-mail from a misappropriated domain name belonging to a
> business in Austin, Texas. The judgment was the result of a lawsuit
> initiated by Tracy LaQuey Parker and her partners, who say the spammer
> had illegally used their domain name (flowers.com) "as his personal
> trash bin." (NewsBytes 24 Sep 97)
>
> SERF'S UP!
> "Serf" (an acronym for server-side educational records facilitator), a
> new Web-based teaching and learning environment developed to provide
> world-wide distance education, can now be accessed at <
> http://www.udel.edu/serf >.
>
> Edupage is written by John Gehl <gehl@educom.edu> & Suzanne Douglas
> <douglas@educom.edu>. Telephone: 770-590-1017
>
> Technical support is provided by Information Technology Services at
> the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
>
> ************************************************************
> Edupage ... is what you've just finished reading. To subscribe to
> Edupage: send mail to: listproc@educom.unc.edu with the message:
> subscribe edupage Ingmar Bergman (if your name is Ingmar Bergman;
> otherwise, substitute your own name). To unsubscribe send a message
> to: listproc@educom.unc.edu with the message: unsubscribe edupage.
> (If you have subscription problems, send mail to
> manager@educom.unc.edu.)
>
> EDUCOM'97 CONFERENCE, the premier national conference on information
> technology in higher education, will be held this year October 28 to
> 31 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In addition to almost 100 presentations
> from leaders in information technology in higher education, the
> conference will feature Eli Noam, director of the Columbia Institute
> for Tele-Information; Sherry Turkle, MIT professor and author of Life
> on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet; and John Perry
> Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. For
> conference information check out <http://educom.edu/ >, call
> 202-872-4200, or send e-mail to conf@educom.edu.
>
> Educom Review ... is our bimonthly print magazine on information
> technology and education ... Subscriptions are $18 a year in the
> U.S.; send mail to offer@educom.edu. When you do, we'll ring a
> little bell, because we'll be so happy! Choice of bell is yours: a
> small dome with a button, like the one on the counter at the dry
> cleaners with the sign "Ring bell for service"; or a small hand bell;
> or a cathedral bell; or a door bell; or a chime; or a glockenspiel.
> Your choice. But ring it!
>
> Educom Update ... is our twice-a-month electronic summary of
> organizational news and events. To subscribe, send mail to:
> listproc@educom.unc.edu with the message: subscribe update Ingmar
> Bergman (if your name is Ingmar Bergman; otherwise, substitute your
> own name).
>
> Translations & Archives... Edupage is translated into Estonian,
> French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Hungarian, Korean, Lithuanian,
> Portuguese, Slovak and Spanish. Send mail to
> translations@educom.unc.edu for info on subscribing to any of these
> translations. See http://www.educom.edu/web/pubs/pubHomeFrame.html for
> Edupage archives.
>
> Today's Honorary Subscriber is the great Swedish stage and film
> director Ingmar Bergman (b.1918). His major films include "The
> Seventh Seal," "Wild Strawberries," "The Magic Flute," "Autumn
> Sonata," "Fanny And Alexander," and the multi-part television drama
> "Scenes From A Marriage." In recent years he has restricted himself
> to stage work and to his autobiography, "The Magic Lantern."
>
> ************************************************************
> Educom -- Transforming Education Through Information Technology
> ************************************************************
>