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ACM
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USACM Recommends
Steps to Ensure Access to Research
USACM Cited in Congressional Research Service TIA Report
Two New Bills Introduced on DRM and Fair Use
House Panel Discusses Restrictions on Peer-to-Peer Networks
House Panel Discusses Data-Mining
NIST Issues Report on Facial Recognition Technology
National Research Council Issues Report on Cyber Privacy
House Creates Panel to Focus on Cybersecurity
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INTRODUCTION
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USACM Recommends Steps to Ensure Access
to Research
In a recent letter to the
Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP),
USACM recommends a clear and concise policy framework for controlling access to
research and information. As our nation takes additional steps to enhance
homeland security and support the ongoing conflict in
USACM cautioned policymakers that erecting unworkable barriers to research threatens the strength of our universities and research enterprise, damages our nation's ability to create and disseminate knowledge, and undermines the education of our future scientific leaders.
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USACM sent letters to
For more information on USACM efforts to educate local and state elected officials regarding e-voting technology concerns, see:
http://www.acm.org/usacm/Issues/EVoting.htm
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USACM Cited in Congressional Research Service TIA Report
USACM’s letter to Senators John Warner and Carl Levin on the Defense Department’s controversial Total Information Awareness Program (TIA) is referenced several times in a new Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, titled “Total Information Awareness Programs: Funding, Composition, and Oversight Issues.” In addition, USACM experts provided further analysis to CRS regarding the need for more research in key areas prior to the implementation of any TIA type program.
As part of the Library of Congress, CRS provides expert advice to members of Congress and their staff on a wide range of policy and technical issues. The materials created by CRS staff are not generally available to the public. CRS reports remain in circulation for extended periods with routine updates to keep the material current. In a related matter, Senator John McCain has introduced S. Res. 54, a resolution to provide Internet access to certain Congressional documents, including some CRS publications.
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Two New Bills Introduced on DRM and Fair Use
This month Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) re-introduced a bill from the last Congress that seeks to affirm the “fair use” rights of consumers and researchers. The bill, H.R. 1066, titled the Benefit Authors without Limiting Advancement or Net Consumer Expectations (BALANCE) Act of 2003, seeks to protect the rights and expectations of consumers who lawfully obtain digital entertainment. The Balance Act also establishes consumers' rights in the digital world by codifying the right to make backup copies of digital works for personal use on other devices. Of particular interest to the computing community, the Balance Act prohibits non-negotiable shrink-wrap licenses and allows researchers to bypass technical measures for a variety of lawful purposes.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced S. 692, the Digital Consumer Right to Know Act that would require the movie and recording industry to notify consumers when they deploy digital rights management (DRM) tools on the digital content they release. According to Senator Wyden, providing consumers with notice of the presence of DRM restrictions on products prior to purchases will encourage the use of anti-piracy technologies that preserve maximum flexibility for consumers.
The bill does not attempt to establish a “fair use” right for consumers such as the one found in H.R. 107, “the Digital Media Consumer Rights Act” introduced by Rick Boucher, (D-VA) and Rep. John Doolittle, (R-CA).
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House Panel Discusses Restrictions on Peer-to-Peer
Networks
This month the House Government Reform Committee held a hearing on the documented widespread distribution of illegal child pornography on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, and the ease by which a youth could stumble across sexually explicit files stored on P2P networks. The Committee hearing also focused on the findings of two reports on the subject, one produced by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) and the other provided by the Hearing Committee staff. Members of the Committee expressed interest in creating legislative solutions to the problems outlined in the reports and testimony.
To review GAO testimony, see:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03537t.pdf
To review testimony provided by Randy Saaf, President of Media Defender, see:
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House Panel Discusses Data-Mining
Recently the House Committee on Government Reform’s Subcommittee on Technology Policy, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census held a hearing on two controversial government sponsored data mining programs: the Transportation Security Administration’s Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS II) and the Department of Defense Total Information Awareness (TIA) program.
Full Committee Chair Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) presided over the subcommittee hearing, and characterized the potential of data mining as the "oil of the 21st century." Congressman Davis suggested a slow approach to regulating data mining technology. A number of witnesses offered testimony on how data mining on a much smaller scale than proposed by the TIA or CAPPS II programs has assisted federal, state and local governments.
Congress has taken steps to exercise legislative oversight over the two projects. The House and Senate voted to suspend funding of the TIA program until privacy and legislative oversight issues are resolved. The Senate Commerce Committee added an amendment, offered by Senator Wyden, to S. 165, the “Air Cargo Security Act,” that requires a number of CAPPS II questions to be answered. These questions include how long collected data will be maintained and who will have access to it; what safeguards will be implemented to ensure only official use of the information; what efforts will be undertaken to mitigate errors and provide procedural recourse to passengers wrongly barred from a flight; and finally what oversight procedures will exist for civil liberties.
To review the USACM TIA letter sent to Congress, see
http://www.acm.org/usacm/Letters/tia_final.html
To review testimony offered by the Government Accounting Office, see:
http://www.acm.org/usacm/Testimony/GAODataMining.pdf
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NIST Issues Report of Facial Recognition Technology
According to a recently released National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report there have been some improvements over the last two years in the ability of computers to identify a human face among many stored on digital media, but more work is needed. The report is the most comprehensive evaluation to date of commercially available face recognition systems and concluded that there has been a 50 percent reduction in error rates since comparable tests conducted in 2000.
A provision of the Patriot Act of 2001 mandated that NIST do the tests as part of a broader initiative to use biometric systems at border crossings. NIST conducted the tests last summer in conjunction with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center (CTAC).
The top three systems reviewed selected the right choice 87 percent to 90 percent of the time with a false-alarm rate of 1 percent. When checking images against a watch list of 25 images at a false-alarm rate of 1 percent, the top three systems were accurate about 80 percent of the time. The success rate fell to below 60 percent when NIST expanded the watch list to 3,000 images at the same false-alarm rate.
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National Research Council Issues Report on Cyber Privacy
The National Academies' National
Research Council released a new report titled “Who Goes There? Authentication Through the
Lens of Privacy.” The report
suggests means of designing an authentication system that incorporates privacy
protection. The report may offer guidance to federal, state, and local
governments that attempt to implement authentication systems designed to control
access to personal or sensitive information on individuals.
The report
highlights the unique relationship that people have with government which can
last a lifetime, including: birth certificates, education records, driver
licenses, marital status records, home and automobile purchases, military
service records, employment related data (i.e. social security numbers, tax
payments, etc.), and death records. In
addition to this information, advances in computing technology will allow the
collection and retention of information on financial transactions, health care,
electronic communications, and travel.
For this reason, the report emphasizes that the design of authentication
systems should require that only the minimum amount of information be gathered to achieve a specific security goal.
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House Creates Panel to Focus on Cybersecurity
Chair Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) and Ranking Member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) will lead the new House Select Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Science, Research and Development. The subcommittee will have oversight on areas of computer security policy related to the protection of government and private information networks. The panel's work will focus on the Homeland Security Department's (HSD) Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection division (IAIP), which is in charge of cybersecurity and intelligence gathering and analysis. The Subcommittee will also provide guidance on security matters for the telecommunications and electric utility industries. According to HSD, IAIPs goal is to create continuity through the coordination, application, and implementation of computer security measures between public and private sector computer networks.
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For earlier editions of the ACM Washington Update. Should you
have
questions, comments, suggestions or recommendations regarding public
policy issues or USACM activities, please contact the ACM Public
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