ACM
USACM and CRA Urge Congressional Support for IT Research at NIST
USACM Joins Diverse Coalition in Seeking Changes to the DMCA
Legislation Introduced to Reauthorize the High Performance Computing Act
EPIC to Host IT Policy Conference in Washington
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USACM Offers to Assist Federal Commission in Assessing Evoting Systems
As policymakers work to implement the technical requirements of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, USACM recommends that independent technical experts be involved in the development and assessment of electronic voting (evoting) standards and technologies. In a letter to the recently created U.S. Election Assistance Commission, USACM offered to provide its technical assistance to the Commission in the technical domains of software program correctness and verification, software engineering, security, and human factors.
In other communications, USACM has recommended that additional federal funds be provided for standards development and research activities to improve the quality, reliability, accuracy, accessibility and security of evoting systems. As computer systems are inherently subject to programming error, equipment malfunction, and malicious tampering, USACM also continues to recommend that a voter-verified audit trail be one of the essential requirements for deployment of computerized voting systems. Due to security concerns, the State of California recently announced that it was decertifying most electronic touch-screen voting machines that fail to provide a voter-verified paper trail.
To review USACM's recent letter to the U.S. Election Commision, see:
http://www.acm.org/usacm/Letters/USACMTGDC.pdf
To review the California Secretary of State's recent evoting announcement, see:
http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2004/04_030.pdf
USACM and CRA Urge Congressional Support for IT Research at NIST
In a joint letter, USACM and the Computing Research Association (CRA) urged members of the House Science Committee to fully fund the FY2005 budget request for IT research and computer security related activities of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The letter will be included in the Science Committee's record of an April 28 hearing convened to review NIST's FY2005 budget request. Others from the computing community, including the Semiconductor Industry Association, also expressed strong support for the IT activities of NIST.
USACM and CRA noted that NIST has played a prominent role in the progress of computing research and the emergence of new scientific disciplines such as bioinformatics and nanotechnology. In the area of computer security, NIST's current activities include conducting security research on emerging technologies, promoting security assessment techniques, providing security management guidance, and facilitating a greater awareness of the need for security. As an example of NIST's effectiveness, USACM and CRA cited NIST's efforts to work in partnership with industry and the computing research community in the development of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).
USACM and CRA expressed concern that NIST's current and planned work in areas including cybersecurity, electronic voting technology, semiconductor manufacturing, and nanotechnology research is in jeopardy as a result of funding levels enacted during the FY2004 appropriations process. They recommended that Congress make NIST funding a priority during FY2005 to ensure that the agency continues to produce materials trusted by the community, joint collaborations with academic and industrial researchers are maintained, and vital standards-orientated work continues.
To review the USACM and CRA letter to the Science Committee, see:
http://www.acm.org/usacm/Letters/CRA-ACMJointNISTforSciCom.pdf
To review the Science Committee's statement on NIST funding, see:
http://www.house.gov/science/press/108/108-237.htm
USACM Joins Diverse Coalition in Seeking Changes to the DMCA
USACM recently joined a diverse coalition of IT companies, library advocates, consumer rights groups, and research organizations known as the Digital Future Coalition (DFC) in calling on Congress to restore balance in copyright law by revising the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA). Among the proposed changes, the DFC is seeking to ensure that scientists can not be sued when engaged in legitimate scientific research, and that consumers are permitted to access hardware and software products that enable noninfringing uses of copy-protected works.
The DMCA was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1998. USACM and other scientific organizations have found that the Act's broad anticircumvention provisions are impeding research in forensics and other computer security areas by subjecting technologists to legal risks and penalties for conducting research that is crucial to developing and testing copyright protection systems, security software, and better software engineering tools. USACM continues to recommend that the anticircumvention provisions of the legislation be narrowed to restrict only the acts of circumvention directly involved in copyright infringement.
For more information about USACM's activities related to the DMCA, see:
http://www.acm.org/usacm/Issues/DMCA.htm
For more information about the Digital Future Coalition, see:
http://www.dfc.org/
Legislation Introduced to Reauthorize the High Performance Computing Act
The House Science Committee has introduced H.R. 4218, the High-Performance Computing Revitalization Act of 2004, to improve coordination among federal agencies involved IT research and development. In particular, H.R. 4218 addresses interagency coordination of the High-Performance Computing Research and Development Program. Among other things, the legislation requires the program to address aspects of high-performance computing for scientific and engineering applications, including: software, algorithm and applications development; development of technical standards; development of new computer models for science and engineering problem solving; and education and training in all the disciplines that support advanced computing.
Congressional staff working on the legislation have invited input from the computing community. Members of ACM interested in commenting on the legislation are encouraged to contact the ACM Office of Public Policy by email at usacm_dc@acm.org.
To review a summary of H.R. 4218, see:
http://www.cra.org/govaffairs/blog/HPCSecBySec.rtf
For more information, see:
http://www.house.gov/science/
EPIC to Host IT Policy Conference in Washington
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is hosting "Freedom 2.0: Distributed Democracy, Dialogue for a Connected World" on May 20-22 at the Washington Club in Washington, DC. The IT policy conference will review and discuss issues involving democracy, transparency, privacy and the public voice. The distinguished list of conference speakers includes USACM members Lillie Coney, David Farber, Gary Marx, Peter Neumann, Pamela Samuelson and Barbara Simons.
Special events include an April 20 reception featuring the SWIPE Project, a performance piece addressing the gathering of data from driver's licenses. An April 21 reception will be hosted at the International Spy Museum and include exclusive access to the museum's collection. EPIC will also present the Champion of Freedom Award during the conference. Registration is now open and the early registration deadline is May 5.
To register for Freedom 2.0, see:
http://regmaster.com/epic04.html
For more information, see the Freedom 2.0 web site at:
http://www.epic04.org/
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