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ACM Washington Update V1.3
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Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 18:36:26 -0400
From: Lauren Amy Gelman
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ACM WASHINGTON UPDATE
U.S. Office of Public Policy of the Association for Computing
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May 23, 1997 Volume 1.3
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INTRODUCTION
USACM ACTIVITIES Scientific Organizations Discuss Database Treaty SIGGRAPH To Hold Policy Seminar at Annual Conference
POLICY BRIEFS Bills Introduced to Limit Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail. DOD Awards Grant to Build "PetaOps" Supercomputer Exports Approved for Encryption for Financial Transactions RSA Sues PGP Over Use Of Encryption Algorithm ACLU Challenges Virginia Law Restricting Use of Net UUNET Will No Longer Peer With Small ISPs FCC Approves "Sky Station International" ISPs Form "IOPS.ORG" Gore Announces New Connections to High Speed Network
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The Association for Computing is an international professional society whose 75,000 members (60,000 in the U.S.) represent a critical mass of computer scientists in education, industry, and government. The USACM provides a means for promoting dialogue on technology policy issues with United States policy makers and the general public. The WASHINGTON UPDATE will report on activities in Washington which may be of interest to those in the computing and information policy communities and will highlight USACM's involvement in many of these issues.
To subscribe to the ACM WASHINGTON UPDATE send an e-mail to listserv@acm.org with "subscribe WASHINGTON-UPDATE" (no quotes) in the body of the message.
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+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ USACM ACTIVITIES =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATIONS DISCUSS DATABASE TREATY
On Monday May 12, USACM attended a meeting at the Copyright Office to discuss new intellectual property protection for databases. USACM was invited by the Register of Copyrights to join representatives from other scientific organizations in discussing the impact of a "sui generis" regime on the scientific community. The Copyright Office will hold a total of eight meetings with constituencies affected by the proposed protection and will write a report on this issue including the history of data protection in the U.S., international efforts at "sui generis" regimes, and summaries of the eight meetings. The report was requested by Senator Hatch, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The representatives at the meeting seemed to agree on three main points. First, it is important that the interests of science be taken into account if any "sui generis" proposal is to be considered. Second, we remain unconvinced that data or "facts" need to be, or should be protected when there is no "value-added" effort involved in their arrangement. Third, all proposals we have seen so far to protect "facts" would have an adverse effect on science.
SIGGRAPH TO HOLD POLICY SEMINAR AT ANNUAL CONFERENCE
ACM SIGGRAPH, the leading organization for computer graphics and interactive techniques, will be holding a special Policy Makers' Seminar at its annual conference on Monday, August 4, 1997 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. USACM is assisting SIGGRAPH in organizing the seminar. Computer graphics and graphical user interfaces are responsible for the tremendous increase in use of the Internet by the general public. Computer graphics special effects are a mainstay in the worldwide entertainment industry. The convergence of television and computing has been a result of pioneering work in the computer graphics research and industrial communities. Computer graphics makes computing accessible to non-specialists in areas ranging from medicine to education. The annual SIGGRAPH conference has for almost twenty-five years been the premier event for computer graphics professionals. Policy issues which directly affect computer graphics, from advanced television standards to cost-effective availability of high bandwidth communications, will be discussed at the seminar.
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=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ POLICY BRIEFS =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ BILL INTRODUCED TO LIMIT UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL E-MAIL
Representative Smith (R-NJ) and Senator Murkowski (R-AL) have introduced legislation to give citizens the ability to screen out unsolicited commercial e-mail messages, often call junk e-mail or "spam." The Senate bill would require labels on e-mails which are characterized as advertisements so that computer users could request service providers to screen out these types of messages. Users could also ask to be removed from specific computer mailing lists. Under the "Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Choice Act of 1997", senders would be required to stop sending the unsolicited advertisements within 48 hours of a request. Senders would also be prohibited by law from disguising their messages' routing. The bill gives large providers a year to install the equipment needed to screen out advertisements; smaller providers would be given two years to comply. It would also require service providers to cut off service to companies that send out junk e-mail without the required information.
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ DOD AWARDS GRANT TO BUILD "PETAOPS" SUPERCOMPUTER
The U. S. Department of Defense has given John F. McDonald, a Rensselaer professor of electrical, computer, and systems engineering a three-year, $1,369,000 contract from the federal Defense Projects Research Agency (DARPA) to build a supercomputer that uses a 16-GHz clock. McDonald will build a "PetaOps" supercomputer (1,000 trillion operations per second), which would be the fastest computer ever developed. The design will incorporate an 8-way superscalar architecture with a 16-GHz clock that could reach 128 billion operations per second. McDonald will use eight of these designs in conjunction to achieve the DARPA designated speeds. McDonald plans to use the heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) design on which mainframe computers were once built to solve the main problem of cooling the machine. Defense will use the faster computer to simulate battles for training soldiers and to simulate the environmental effects of natural disasters. Scientists have also said that such speeds could help unravel the human genome and improve the accuracy of weather predictions. http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/news/trends/t970509b.htm
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ EXPORTS APPROVED FOR ENCRYPTION FOR FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS
On May 8, the Department of Commerce announced that it will allow the export of non-recoverable encryption products of unlimited key length for products that are specifically designed for financial transactions, including home banking. They will also allow exports, for two years, of non-recoverable general-purpose commercial products of unlimited key length when used for inter- bank and similar financial transactions, once the manufacturers file a commitment to develop recoverable products. Export licenses will be granted after a one-time product review. This agreement is similar to that set out for the export of other encryption products in the Administration's Interim Rule on encryption exports announced last year. http://www.bxa.doc.gov/encstart.htm.
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ RSA SUES PGP OVER USE OF ENCRYPTION ALGORITHM
RSA Data Security has filed a lawsuit against Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), alleging that PGP failed to comply with the terms of a licensing agreement that RSA had signed with Lemcom, the company with which PGP merged last year. RSA says Lemcom had "no ability to transfer rights to the source code for the Licensed Product to an OEM Customer or anyone else." When informed that its license agreement to RSA technology was canceled, "PGP demanded we sue them in order to exercise audit rights clearly laid out in the agreement," says RSA President Jim Bidzos. Meanwhile, PGP says the products it's developing don't rely on the RSA encryption scheme. "Those new products will be encryption-algorithm independent," says PGP VP Robert Kohn, which will "break RSA monopoly on this technology."
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ ACLU CHALLENGES VIRGINIA LAW RESTRICTING USE OF NET
The American Civil Liberties Union and six Virginia college professors has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a Virginia state law that makes it a crime for state employees using state-owned computers to "access, download, print or store any information . . . having sexually explicit content." In addition, the law prohibits "storage" of sexually oriented communications on state-owned computers, and bars employees from using e-mail, chat rooms and list servs, if the exchange involves sexually explicit words or images. Penalties for violations are not specified and would presumably be left to the discretion of state agencies. The law requires professors and other state employees wishing to download, post, transmit or store sexually explicit material on their computers to first ask for approval in writing from agency heads, such as a university official. Requests for such approval are then made available to the public. The Virginia law exempts state employees who can show they need computer access to sexually explicit material for a "bona fide, agency-approved research project or other agency-approved undertaking," but the professors argue that the law would prevent them from teaching literature written by such sexually explicit writers as Henry Miller and Allen Ginsberg. The case, Urofsky et al. v. Allen, is filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, and names Governor George Allen as a defendant. The lawsuit specifically challenges Sections 2.1-804-806 of the Virginia Code. http://www.aclu.org.
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ UUNET WILL NO LONGER PEER WITH SMALL ISPS
On May 12, UUNET Technologies Inc., the world's largest Internet service provider and a subsidiary of WorldCom Inc. said it will no longer accept peering requests from ISP's whose infrastructures do not allow for the exchange of similar traffic levels. Peering is an arrangement whereby "peers", or ISP's of similar size, route each others' traffic to destinations on their respective networks. Because the flow of data and use of infrastructure are anticipated to be approximately equal in both directions, no money changes hands in peering relationships. UUNET's policy is to peer with ISP's that operate a national network with a dedicated, diversely routed DS-3 (or faster) backbone, and which will connect to UUNET at DS-3 or greater speeds in at least four geographically diverse locations. They said that it is no longer economically feasible for them to peer with small ISP's which cannot route traffic on a bilateral and equitable basis.
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ FCC APPROVES "SKY STATION INTERNATIONAL"
The FCC has approved the development of Sky Station International, a plan to provide wireless T1-level service (1.5Mbps) to laptop computers by routing through giant "weather balloons." The stations themselves will be on platforms suspended in the atmosphere approximately 100,000 feet from the ground by "lighter-than-air craft and station-kept by corona ion engines." http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/International/Public_Notices/1996/pnin6060.txt
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ ISPS FORM "IOPS.ORG"
Nine of the nation's major Internet service providers announced on May 20 the formation of IOPS.ORG, an organization of Internet service providers (ISPs). IOPS.ORG will focus primarily on "resolving and preventing network integrity problems, addressing issues that require technical coordination and technical information-sharing across and among ISPs." Their primary purpose is to make the "commercial Internet more robust and reliable. These issues include joint problem resolution, technology assessment, and global Internet scaling and integrity." IOPS.ORG will be a basis for cooperation and collaboration between the large ISPs. The founding members of IOPS.ORG are ANS Communications, AT&T, BBN Corporation, EarthLink Network, GTE, MCI, NETCOM, PSINet, and UUNET, and it is expected that additional national and international Internet operators will join. http://www.iops.org
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Vice President Gore announced on Tuesday, May 20, that the National Science Foundation is awarding $12.3 million in grants to 35 research institutions across the United States to allow them to connect to the very high speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS). These grants will bring the total number of research institutions connected to vBNS to 64. The NSF grants help set the foundation for the Administration's Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative. http://www.ngi.gov.
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