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RAIN 02/03: Weekly Update 01/31 Part 2



There are 13 stories in this posting.


Business Week 01/29/02
Reject the Corporate Secrecy Grab
Industry's push for new exemptions from the Freedom of Information Act is unnecessary and dangerous
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2002/tc20020129_6083.htm

By David Banisar
In the name of improving cyber security, corporations are pushing for exemptions to the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that are unnecessary and dangerous. These will result in crucial information being suppressed without improving security.
There are two bills pending before the Congress -- HR2435, the Cyber Security Information Act, introduced by Reps. Davis and Moran, and S. 1456, the Critical
Infrastructure Information Act, introduced by Senators Bennett and Kyl.



Toledo Blade 01/31/02
Appeals court rules against Perrysburg Twp. in amphitheater records case
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl...20020131&Category=NEWS17&ArtNo=101310035&Ref=AR

By JOE MAHR
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Perrysburg Township officials’ attempt to find incriminating documents about their
colleagues in Rossford was dealt a setback yesterday after an appeals court ruled the
township couldn’t use the state Public Records Act to try to do it.
Still, it’s not the final say on whether the township will get access to a host of documents surrounding a legal battle in which the township claims it was duped by Rossford into making a bad, $5 million loan.



Government Computer News 01/21/02
Knowledge Management
http://www.gcn.com/21_2/tech-report/17779-1.html

By William Jackson
GCN Staff
FAA researchers coast into Web collaborationRon Simmons became a believer in Internet
collaboration in 1998 while looking for a way to track research funded by the Federal Aviation Administration’s human factors office.
“We had 98 projects going” at institutions in New Zealand, Europe and the University of Illinois, said Simmons, the office’s knowledge officer. “I was trying to avoid custom software development.” The human factors office studies physical and physiological effects of aviation on pilots and air traffic controllers.



Washington Post 01/31/02
Land Records Office Stakes Out New Electronic Territory
Fairfax Is Third County In U.S. to Take E-Filings
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62139-2002Jan30.html

By Tom Jackman
Behind the counter at the land records office in the Fairfax County Courthouse, the incoming mail fills box after box,with thousands of legal documents and cashier's checks piling up continuously.
But with the click of a computer mouse, those piles should start to shrink. Last week, Fairfax became only the third county in the nation to accept real estate filings electronically, and the first to adopt a system coordinated by Fannie Mae, the mortgage agency that said it hopes to establish one computer protocol for all 3,400 county deed recorders nationwide.



Bangor Daily News 01/31/02
Editorial: Laptop foe cites abuse in Virginia
Security breaches forced iBook recall
http://www.bangornews.com/editorialnews/article.html?ID=49885

GARLAND — Gov. King’s $37 million school laptop proposal has been taking
heat from lawmakers worried about the state’s looming budget deficit.
Now there’s yet another reason to ditch the plan to buy Apple iBooks for every
seventh-grader, according to conservative activist Mary Adams.



Washington Post 01/31/02
For Library, It's a Whole New Chapter
$8 Million Overhaul Could Start in '03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62132-2002Jan30.html

By Jason McGahan
A major overhaul and expansion of the
regional library in the heart of Fairfax City is scheduled to begin as soon as next
year, city and library officials have announced, although the future of proposals to
remake the rest of the downtown area is uncertain.
The three-story building, a fixture at the corner of Chain Bridge Road and
Whitehead Street for 40 years, was the first permanent home and central library for Fairfax's library system, which now has 21 branches.



Business Week 01/31/02
Get Your Docs in a Row With PaperPort
The latest edition of the powerful personal document manager can help you make the most of your scanner
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2002/tc20020130_1247.htm

by Harry McCracken
A scanner alone can't tame information overload--it just moves your paper stacks from the real world onto your hard drive. Enter ScanSoft's PaperPort Deluxe 8, the newest version of a venerable, ingenious personal document manager.
PaperPort's intuitive interface seems to resemble that of Windows XP's Explorer, with searchable folders showing thumbnails of scanned documents, photos, and other files. But this virtual desktop outperforms Windows' own. For instance, it has simple tools for annotating pages and tweaking snapshots.



Government Technology 01/21/02
PTO’s filing system is ready for the next step
http://www.gcn.com/21_2/news/17823-1.html

By Preeti Vasishtha
GCN Staff
For its e-government initiative, the Patent and Trademark Office is developing two workflow management systems to process applications.
In the works are Tools for Electronic Application Management for patents and the Trademark Information System for trademarks.
“We already have an electronic filing system where customers can create an application, package it up, encrypt it and send it to us in a highly secure environment over the Internet,” CIO Douglas J. Bourgeois said.



The Register-News 01/31/02
Paper shredder gets $50,000 grant
http://www.zwire.com/news/newsstory.cfm?news...PAG=461&CATNAME=Top%20Stories&CATEGORYID=410

By Mary Kaye Davis
City and Neighborhood Reporter
MT. VERNON — A businesswoman’s idea to provide a way to dispose of confidential
papers has already been deemed a success, and she’s received state recognition for her
ingenuity.
Mary (Federici) Burgan recently received a $50,000 grant to expand her 9-month-old
business, Ripped to Shreds. Last year, Burgan received a $50,000 grant which allowed
her to start the business.



San Diego Union-Tribune
Privacy issues, scandals drive latest boom in business
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20020131-9999_1b31shred.html

By Dean Calbreath
G. Gordon Liddy helped shred documents during Nixon era.
Oliver North shredded papers within earshot of probers.
As Enron was admitting it turned boxloads of financial documents into
confetti, the folks at the National Association for Information Destruction
feared that their industry's reputation might end up in shreds.
The Phoenix-based association, which represents more than 200 papershredders
nationwide, put out a statement headlined "Shredding is Good!" The
goal: to assure the public "that the overwhelming majority of document
destruction . . . is done so quite appropriately and for the cause of good."
The association need not have worried.



Chicago Tribune 01/31/02
Evidence likely lingers amid high-tech shreds
http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0201310276jan31.column

by Barbara Rose
It's been two weeks since the Andersen accounting firm fired David Duncan, the man being blamed for its Enron document-shredding orgy.
Duncan, who was Andersen's lead partner on the Enron account, is the guy Andersen says led a team in destroying "a very substantial volume of documents and e-mails" relating to Enron.



New York Times 01/31/02
Cram Sessions: The Evolution of an Ever Deeper Disc
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/31/technology/circuits/31HOWW.html

By MATT LAKE
LIKE almost everything in the electronics industry, compact disc technology started
to show its age pretty quickly. A decade after the first CD's appeared in the early 1980's, their 640 megabytes of storage capacity had begun to look paltry, particularly when it came to the holy grail of in-home entertainment: accommodating a high-quality feature-length film on one disc.
For that, other solutions were needed. One was the VideoCD format, introduced in 1993,
which uses standard CD's and provides good quality video and sound. But with the disc's
running time of less than 74 minutes, most films could not be contained on a single
VideoCD, and the format never caught on in the United States (although it did in Asia,
where it is still in widespread use).



The Register-Guard 01/31/02
Student records due an upgrade
http://www.registerguard.com/news/20020130/1d.cr.database.0130.html

By ANNE WILLIAMS
When the Eugene School District acquired its computerized student recordkeeping system back in 1987, only a handful of other school districts in the Northwest had anything so sophisticated and cutting-edge.
But that was 15 years ago - a technological eternity. Today, few districts still use the outdated system, and all of them, including Eugene, are looking to replace it, said Les Moore, the district's director of computing and information services.



Peter A. Kurilecz CRM, CA
pakurilecz@aol.com
Richmond, Va