USACM and the Computing Research Association (CRA) recently sent a joint letter to Congressional appropriators in support of funding for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) laboratories. In the letter, USACM and CRA describe the crucial and broadly beneficial nature of NIST’s work and voice support for funding levels equal to (or higher) than the levels proposed in legislation under consideration in the Senate. The joint letter concludes that “NIST provides an invaluable setting for industry, academia, and government to work together on crucial technical issues,” and that the “underfunding of NIST will adversely affect [its] credibility as well as [its] ability to function, and will have serious long-term consequences.” NIST labs are also working to support e-voting security and standards initiatives.

A copy of the letter is available here

“A diverse set of organizations submitted comments this week criticizing the Homeland Security Department’s revised airline passenger pre-screening system known as Secure Flight, hoping to thwart the effort before it gets off the ground.

Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Business Travel Coalition, Electronic Privacy Information Center and American Conservative Union filed their comments on Secure Flight on Monday, the last day public comments were allowed. About 500 submissions were received overall, the majority from private citizens.

The comments from EPIC, however, went so far as to call for a suspension of the program until the Transportation Security Administration and other agencies involved in the effort are willing to disclose key information to the public […]”

SOURCE: GovExec.com
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“MIAMI - Eight days before Election Day, a federal judge ruled Monday that Florida’s touch-screen voting machines do not have to produce a paper record for use in case a recount becomes necessary.

U.S. District Judge James Cohn said that the machines “provide sufficient safeguards” by warning voters if they have not cast a vote in a particular race and by allowing them to give their ballots a final review.

Rep. Robert Wexler [D-Fla.] had sought either a paper record or an order switching voters in 15 counties from touch-screens to optically scanned paper ballots by 2006 […]”

SOURCE: AP via Yahoo! News

” Electronic voting systems that were touted as the solution to the paper ballots and hanging chads of the 2000 presidential election have become a new source of controversy as experts debate the reliability of software that operates the new systems, whether local election officials have the technical competence to run them and how there can be a recount on machines that keep no paper record of votes cast on them.

In the days leading up to the Nov. 2 election, critics of the new systems are voicing their concerns about the integrity of the ATM-like machines that will be used by one-third of the nation’s voters – more than double the number that used them four years ago […]”

SOURCE: Washington Post [free reg. req.]

Peter Harsha has an interesting post on CRA’s Computing Research Policy weblog about CompTIA’s recent questions for the Bush and Kerry campaigns about technology policy.

“FCC Chairman Michael Powell said Tuesday that he would seek broad regulatory authority for the federal government over Internet-based telephone services to avoid stifling the emerging market.

Powell told a receptive audience at an industry conference that letting states regulate Voice over Internet Protocol,or VoIP, services would lead to a patchwork of conflicting rules like those which have ensnarled the traditional phone business for decades […]”

SOURCE: AP via NY Times [free reg. req.]

From Slashdot:

“The Federal Trade Commission formally announced yesterday its first assault against spyware - bits of computer code that surreptitiously install themselves on the computers of Internet users to track their activities, push them to Web sites, barrage them with advertisements, and otherwise wreak havoc with their machines.

The commission filed a lawsuit in a federal court in New Hampshire last week against Sanford Wallace, the owner of Seismic Entertainment Productions and Smartbot.net, contending that Mr. Wallace and his companies had violated federal law, which prohibits “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce […]”

SOURCE: NY Times [free reg. req.]

“The Council of Europe Committee of Ministers [has agreed to] the first international legal text on e-voting in elections and referendums.

The recommendation sets out a blueprint for governments planning to use new technologies for future elections and referendums.

[…] The legal and technical guidelines of the Council of Europe indicate how to build, run and supervise e-voting systems to ensure that results are as reliable as those delivered by traditional paper-based methods. The Council’s recommendation emphasises the need for new voting methods to meet the principles of universal and equal suffrage, free and secret ballots and for the systems to be secure, transparent and accountable. It covers issues such as electoral lists, information to voters and vote counting […]”

SOURCE: Council of Europe

“Testimony Before the Virginia Legislature on House Joint Resolution 162, Considering the Creation of Smart Driver’s Licenses […]

I [Chris Calabrese, Counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Technology and Liberty Program] am going to talk today about the numerous very real and practical problems associated with placing RFID chips in drivers’ licenses. They include:

1. the major security problems associated with allowing identity to be read remotely

2. the costly infrastructure that must be built in order to utilize these chips
3. the probable lack of effectiveness of RFID chips in improving security, and
4. the wide-ranging civil liberties violations made possible by RFIDs […]

SOURCE: ACLU

“[…] Today’s turmoil over copyrights contains a disturbing new twist, however. Digital technology – from MP3 players to software that makes it easy to build Web pages – shatters almost all of the technical barriers to duplicating and sharing copyrighted works. That has caused unparalleled anxiety among copyright holders. As a result, music and movie companies have adopted a strategy of targeting digital technology itself as well as those who design it and those who use it.

In time this could threaten the delicate balance between copy protection and technical innovation. The intent of copyright law in the U.S. is to promote learning and innovation while giving artists, musicians, and writers a limited monopoly on their work. The goal isn’t to assure that artists or intellectuals make oodles of cash.

[…] Nobody disputes that digital technology has created unforeseen dilemmas for copyright protection. But changing the laws to target versatile technology and scientific investigation rather than bad behavior is asking society to pay too high a price.”

SOURCE: Business Week Online

“[…] Technology companies and the record industry are nearing a last-minute showdown on Capitol Hill over a controversial bill [the Induce Act, S. 2560] aimed at quelling file swapping.

[…] A round of negotiations between the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and technology organizations closed this week without reaching compromise, according to people familiar with the talks. Hatch’s Judiciary committee was scheduled to vote on a version of the legislation Thursday, but adjourned without taking up the bill. The issue is now most likely to be taken up when Congress returns for a short session in November, participants in the negotiations said […]”

SOURCE: News.com

“The Senate Judiciary Committee has postponed a final review of the Induce Act after negotiations among the principal parties involved in crafting the bill collapsed.

Technology organizations, consumer groups and the entertainment industry failed to reach a consensus on the language of the proposed bill, which would make it illegal to encourage copyright infringement.

“It’s not going to move today,” said Margarita Tapia, a spokeswoman for Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), one of the sponsors of the bill and the head of the judiciary committee. “We’re continuing to work on the issue.”

[…] “We find ourselves further apart now than at the outset of this process,” wrote representatives of the Consumer Electronics Association, IEEE-USA and NetCoalition in a letter to Hatch and Leahy on Wednesday, urging the committee to “not move forward now” with the bill […]”

SOURCE: Wired News

“After four days of painstaking negotiations, technology and consumer groups said they have failed to reach a consensus with the entertainment industry on the language of the Induce Act, a proposed bill making it illegal to encourage copyright infringement.

Nevertheless, the bill, introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), is still scheduled for markup in a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting Thursday, to be put in final form for a vote. The technology and consumer advocacy groups sent letters to the committee Wednesday urging them not to move forward with the legislation […]”

SOURCE: Wired News

NOTE: Click here (and here) for more information about USACM’s recent activities regarding the Induce Act.

The Progressive Policy Institute has published a report (PDF) on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, cautioning the government against early efforts to regulate the technology:

Click here for more information.

CONTENTS

[1] ACM Leadership Approves Position Statement on Voting Systems
[2] USACM Joins Diverse Coalition Seeking Hearings on the Induce Act
[3] USACM Launches New Web Site and Tech Policy Weblog
[4] Congress to Take Action on 9/11 Commission Recommendations
[5] International Developments in Cybercrime, Spam, and Internet Governance
[6] Upcoming Events of Interest to Computing Community
[7] About USACM

[An archive of all previous editions of Washington Update is available here.]
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“The Senate could pass a bill as early as Wednesday evening that would let government counter-terrorist investigators instantly query a massive system of interconnected commercial and government databases that hold billions of records on Americans.

The proposed network is based on the Markle Foundation Task Force’s December 2003 report, which envisioned a system that would allow FBI and CIA agents, as well as police officers and some companies, to quickly search intelligence, criminal and commercial databases. The proposal is so radical, the bill [S. 2845] allocates $50 million just to fund the system’s specifications and privacy policies.

[…] To prevent abuses of the system, the Markle task force recommended anonymized technology, graduated levels of permission-based access and automated auditing software constantly hunting for abuses […]”

SOURCE: Wired News

NOTE: Also see Peter Harsha’s thoughtful post in CRA’s Computing Research Policy weblog.

“A federal appeals court said Tuesday that it will reconsider its June 29 decision that dismissed a case against a man accused of snooping on clients’ e-mail messages. In that case, which has drawn fire from Capitol Hill, a three-judge panel said that Bradford Councilman, a former executive for an online bookseller, did not violate federal wiretap laws by allegedly snooping on e-mail that Amazon.com sent to customers through accounts Councilman provided […]”

SOURCE: CNET News.com

“Companies and others that secretly install “spyware” programs on people’s computers to quietly monitor their Internet activities would face hefty federal fines under a bill the House passed Tuesday.

[…] The House proposal, known as the “Spy Act,” adds civil penalties over what has emerged as an extraordinary frustration for Internet users, whose infected computers often turn sluggish and perform unexpectedly.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Mary Bono, R-Calif., provides guidelines for technology companies that distribute software capable of most types of electronic monitoring. It requires that consumers explicitly choose to install such software and agree to the information being collected […]”

SOURCE: AP via Wasghington Post [free reg. req.]

“A new commission to set a strategy and timeline for implementing health care IT standards is taking shape.

On Friday, President Bush and Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) named the initial members of the Commission on Systemic Interoperability. The group, by November of next year, must recommend standards that will serve as the foundation for establishing a system of universal health records […]”

SOURCE: GCN

“Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, the Bush administration - specifically, the Department of Homeland Security - has wanted the world to agree on a standard for machine-readable passports. Countries whose citizens currently do not have visa requirements to enter the United States will have to issue passports that conform to the standard or risk losing their nonvisa status.

These future passports, currently being tested, will include an embedded computer chip. This chip will allow the passport to contain much more information than a simple machine-readable character font, and will allow passport officials to quickly and easily read that information. That is a reasonable requirement and a good idea for bringing passport technology into the 21st century.

But the Bush administration is advocating radio frequency identification (RFID) chips for both U.S. and foreign passports, and that’s a very bad thing […]”

SOURCE: International Herald Tribune

NOTE: Schneier also has a new security weblog.

“[…] Robert Pepper is the FCC’s chief of policy development, which requires him to be a kind of government futurist, advising Chairman Michael Powell on which regulations are wise and which would be harmful. He’s also co-chairman of the FCC’s Internet Policy Working Group. Previously, Pepper directed the Annenberg Washington Program in Communications Policy Studies.

CNET News.com spoke with Pepper […]”

SOURCE: CNET News.com

“[…] While many voter rights’ advocates are fighting to decertify electronic voting machines, arguing they’re not reliable, one bloc remains steadfast behind the new equipment – disabled voters who say the machines give them long-denied privacy.

“The need for greater access by millions of people should not be overshadowed by this concern about security to the point that some people throw up their hands and say, ‘Let’s go back the punch card,’” said James Gashel, an executive at the Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind, or NFB.

The Help America Vote Act, passed by Congress in 2002, requires polling places to provide the same privacy and independence to all voters by 2006 […]”

SOURCE: Wired News

“The government’s cybersecurity chief has abruptly resigned after one year with the Department of Homeland Security, confiding to industry colleagues his frustration over what he considers a lack of attention paid to computer security issues within the agency.

Amit Yoran, a former software executive from Symantec Corp., informed the White House about his plans to quit as director of the National Cyber Security Division and made his resignation effective at the end of Thursday, effectively giving a single’s day notice of his intentions to leave […]”

SOURCE: AP via NYT [free reg. req.]