From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: Edupage, 9 February 1999
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 09:05:18 -0600
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Edupage, 9 February 1999. Edupage, a summary of news about information
technology, is provided three times a week as a service of EDUCAUSE, an
international nonprofit association dedicated to transforming higher
education through information technologies.
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TOP STORIES
W-Four: The World Wide Wireless Web
Y2K: The Biggest Fear Is Fear Itself
Lycos Merges With USA Network
Freedom Software Targets Personal Security
ALSO
Free-PC.Com Has A Deal For You
Virus Can Send Data Over The Internet
Japan To Test-Drive High-Speed Network
Rebates For Purchases On Web
Honorary Subscriber: Isadora Duncan
W-FOUR: THE WORLD WIDE WIRELESS WEB
Several just-announced corporate alliances are new signals that the
World Wide Web will, before too long, break out of the wires that now
bind it together. Nextel and Netscape will work together so that
Netscape's software will allow Nextel customers to use their wireless
phones for retrieving e-mail and accessing Internet or corporate
databases. Microsoft will work with British Telecommunications PLC to
adapt Microsoft's Windows CE operating system for British Telecom's
pocket phones. And Cisco Systems, the data networking equipment
company, will work with Motorola to develop products and standards for
transferring Internet data over wireless networks. (Washington Post 9
Feb 99)
Y2K: THE BIGGEST FEAR IS FEAR ITSELF
Expert advisers on the "year 2000 problem" are saying that panic about
the problem could be worse than the problem itself. Planners are
warning that overreaction to the perceived problem could cause bank
runs, food and gasoline hoarding, and social disruptions. But
overreaction now may be preferable to overreaction later, says Y2K
expert Charles Halpern, who is urging those most likely to worry about
the problem to go ahead and stock up now on the supplies that would make
them emotionally comfortable. "There's sufficient information for people
to say there's a substantial risk of disruption. Overreaction now is so
much preferable to overreaction in November that it's a risk worth
running. People who want to lay in supplies of canned vegetables can do
it now without disrupting anything." (New York Times 9 Feb 99)
LYCOS MERGES WITH USA NETWORK
Lycos, the fourth-most visited site on the Web, will merge with TV
network USA Network (parent of Home Shopping Network); the new company
will advertise its Web services on USA Networks' cable TV shows and its
TV programs on Lycos Web sites. Despite its popularity, Lycos has lost
money every year since its founding in 1995. (USA Today 9 Feb 99)
FREEDOM SOFTWARE TARGETS PERSONAL SECURITY
Zero Knowledge Systems has unveiled its Freedom software product,
designed to provide a measure of personal privacy on the Internet by
encrypting messages and provide up to five pseudonyms that can be used
in electronic commerce, chat rooms or sensitive-topic discussion groups.
The software also includes a spam filter and cookie protector. Analysts
say the software could make electronic shopping a more attractive
proposition, because buyers wouldn't have to divulge their personal
information (other than their credit card numbers). "When users don't
see themselves as having privacy, they'll just lie and give totally
false (demographic and personal) data, so a lot of the data that
marketers get today is useless," says Zero Knowledge chief scientist Ian
Goldberg. Freedom software is expected to hit the shelves next month.
(Los Angeles Times 8 Feb 99)
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FREE-PC.COM HAS A DEAL FOR YOU
Free-PC.com, a closely held start-up backed by cyber-business investor
Bill Gross, plans to offer consumers a free sub-$1,000 Compaq PC plus
Internet access in exchange for agreeing to use the machine at least 10
hours a month and downloading advertising that is displayed in a strip
on the right side of the screen. Gross, who has funded more than 20
companies through his Idealab! investment company, says the economics of
the giveaway finally make sense because each Web customer is valued at
about $1,000 in potential advertising and transaction fees over several
years -- more than the price of the PC. (Wall Street Journal 8 Feb 99)
VIRUS CAN SEND DATA OVER THE INTERNET
A new virus, dubbed Caligula, is capable of retrieving information off
of a computer and sending it to an FTP site run by the hackers who
created the virus. Caligula steals a user's PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)
key ring and sends it to The Codebreakers' FTP site. The key ring is
encrypted and very difficult to break, so the user's security is
probably not at risk, but the virus illustrates the capability of having
one's files stolen off the computer. Caligula is one of a several
increasingly complex viruses, the result of more voluminous operating
systems and applications software that provides camouflage for a large
virus file. "(A virus) used to be written in assembler and made as tiny
as it could be," says a technical director with security firm ICSA.
Now, hackers like The Codebreakers can "do it with impunity and are
protected by the First Amendment while dramatically contributing to the
problem. If they were slapped by the law, it might give them an
incentive to stop." (TechWeb 8 Feb 99)
JAPAN TO TEST-DRIVE HIGH-SPEED NETWORK
A group headed by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone is starting a two-year
test that will use high-speed switching technology to resolve data
networking gridlock. The Mapos (multiple-access over SONET/SDH)
technology will be used to link five points in Tokyo via optical fiber.
More than 10 companies and universities, including NTT, International
Digital Communications and the Japanese units of Cisco Systems and Sun
Microsystems, will take part in the trial. "We have verified that Mapos
functions in a laboratory environment," says an NTT spokesman. "In the
field test starting in the middle of this month, we are going to verify
how high a performance it can attain in the practical network
environment where Internet data is actually flowing." At the same time
KDD, Japan's leading international telephone carrier, plans to start its
"KTH21" (KDD Terabit Highway for the 21st Century) project, which will
establish a terabit-level backbone network and international trunk lines
for high-speed networking. (EE Times 8 Feb 99)
REBATES FOR PURCHASES ON WEB
A company called SmartFrog is offering a 5% rebate on purchases made at
certain Web sites, such as Amazon.com, eToys and Beyond.com, in a
program developed along the lines of frequent-flyer arrangements. The
rebate checks are sent twice a year. Smart Frog is in turn reimbursed
by the merchants with whom it has forged agreements. (Infoworld 8 Feb
99)
HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: ISADORA DUNCAN
Today's Honorary Subscriber is the famous American dancer Isadora
Duncan. She said, "People do not live nowadays -- they get about 10% out
of life." For more about her life, see the very end of today's Edupage.
Edupage is written by John Gehl (gehl@educause.edu) and Suzanne Douglas
(douglas@educause.edu). Telephone: 770-590-1017
Technical support for distributing Edupage is provided by Information
Technology Services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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UPCOMING EDUCAUSE CONFERENCES AND MEETINGS:
The Higher Education Financial Executive Symposium, Feb 21-23, 1999,
Arlington, Virginia. http://www.nacubo.org/website/events.html.
Sponsored by NACUBO and EDUCAUSE.
The Council of Independent Colleges and EDUCAUSE, Mar 25-27, 1999,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. http://www.cic.edu/conferences/
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HONORARY SUBSCRIBER
Today's Honorary Subscriber is the legendary dancer and teacher Isadora
Duncan (1878-1927), the San Francisco-born free spirit who pioneered
"Modern Dance" -- which rejected ballet in favor of an expressive free
form. She was inspired mainly by the ideal of Hellenic beauty, but her
choreography incorporated a number of distinctive "everyday" movements
such as running, skipping, and walking; she danced barefoot, wore a
loose tunic, and liked to have many scarves draped around her neck.
Although Isadora's unconventional lifestyle and her views on
marriage, free love, and women's liberation caused her to be regarded as
a scandalous figure, she was acclaimed as a dance genius. She founded
schools in European cities such as Berlin, Salzburg, and Vienna, and
traveled widely in Russia.
Her general attitude toward life is summed up in her comment:
"Virtuous people are simply those who have not been tempted
sufficiently, because they live in a vegetative state, or because their
purposes are so concentrated in one direction that they have not had the
leisure to glance around them."
There was much tragedy in her personal life. Her two children born
out of wedlock drowned in a car accident, and Isadora herself died in a
car accident when her long flowing scarf got caught up in the wheel of
the open sports car in which she was riding.
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EDUCAUSE, an international nonprofit association dedicated to
transforming higher education through information technologies
************************************************************