A federal judge has ruled that publishers may reprint articles on CD ROMs or in electronic databases without permission from or payment to authors. (This matches microfilm archive rights, granted under the Copyright Act of 1976.) The decision will be appealed. [NYT, 14Aug97. EduP.]

Should federally funded researchers have to make public their raw data? An amendment to that effect has been defeated (for now) in committee, but had considerable support. [Robert L. Park, WHAT'S NEW, 15Aug97.]

The Inst. for the Advanced Study of Information Warfare (IASIW) covers I-War, IW, C4I, or Cyberwar. As Gen. Alfred M. Grey (USMC) has said, "Communications without intelligence is noise; intelligence without communications is irrelevant." . Links to over 150 intelligence and counterintelligence assets on Internet are available at . [CSS Internet News. John Walker , net-hap, 08May97.]

A computer cracker who stole more than 100K credit card numbers over the Internet could be sentenced 25Nov97 to $1M and 30 years in prison. [AP, 26Aug97. EduP.]

The US reports a big increase in amateur counterfeiting using color copiers. The penalty "for these knucklehead kids" can be up to 15 years in prison. [NYT, 18Aug97. EduP.]

IBG BiometricStore (New York City) is opening a showroom for biometric technology: voice verification, iris scan, retina scan, hand geometry, finger scan, signature verification, and face recognition. Visitors will be able to compare three fingerscan technologies: ultrasound (Ultra-Scan), chip (Thomson CSF), and optical NRID. Also voice verification (TNTX), face biometrics (Visionics), and dynamic signature verification (CICI). International Biometric Group (IBG) is planning to open similar centers in other cities. [Bill Park , 28Aug97.]

Sargur Srihari at SUNY Buffalo has been developing handwriting recognition for the US Post Office. The software classifies words by their shape, context, and any letters that can be recognized. Although accuracy is only 60%, the Post Office expects to save over $50M/year. [Discover, Jul97. EduP.]