The Best Products of 2003
"PC Magazine's Best Products List is out."

• Desktops & Notebooks
• Processors
• Digital Imaging
• Printers
• Productivity Software
• Utilities
• Audio
• Video
• Peripherals
• Home Entertainment
• Mobile Devices & Services
• Open-Source Tools
• Networking
• Development Tools
• Games
• Education & Reference

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1421871,00.asp

InformIT.com : Design & Creative Media > Web Design:
"Web Design Reference Guide"

The Guide is broken into several sections, as follows:

• Web Design Reference Guide


• Articles and sample chapters


• Books and e-books


• Online resources

The Web Design Reference Guide is continuously updated. Each
week, you can expect new content with the latest news and information from the
world of Web design.

Table of Contents
http://www.informit.com/isapi/guide~webdesign/seq_id~3/guide/content.asp

http://www.informit.com/topics/index.asp?guide=webdesign

The Law of War in the War on Terror:
"What are the boundaries of the Bush administration's 'war on terrorism?' The recent battles fought against the Afghan and Iraqi governments were classic wars between organized military forces. But President George W. Bush has suggested that his campaign against terrorism goes beyond such conflicts; he said on September 29, 2001, 'Our war on terror will be much broader than the battlefields and beachheads of the past. The war will be fought wherever terrorists hide, or run, or plan.'

This language stretches the meaning of the word 'war.' If Washington means 'war' metaphorically, as when it speaks about a 'war' on drugs, the rhetoric would be uncontroversial, a mere hortatory device intended to rally support for an important cause. Bush, however, seems to think of the war on terrorism quite literally -- as a real war -- and this concept has worrisome implications. The rules that bind governments are much looser during wartime than in times of peace. The Bush administration has used war rhetoric precisely to give itself the extraordinary powers enjoyed by a wartime government to detain or even kill suspects without trial. In the process, the administration may have made it easier for itself to detain or eliminate suspects. But it has also threatened the most basic due process rights."

http://www.nytimes.com/cfr/international/20040101faessay_v83n1_roth.html?pagewanted=all&position=

ZDNet AnchorDesk: Greatest hits: The top columns of 2003

http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/4520-7298-5114689.html

Of Dying Viruses and Dangerous Xmas Cards:
"While antivirus vendors have reported several new viruses and malicious attackers in the past week, we have not seen any new large scale outbreaks. However, the ghosts of virus past are still with us -- Klez, Blaster, Swen, Bugbear, Dumaru, Mimail, and Welchia\Nachi all haunt the top ten. According to virus analysts, the Welchia\Nachi worm has only another week or so to live, as it is supposed to remove itself in 2004. Despite this fact, it is still infecting at a good rate…"

2003 may go down in history as the year of the spammer, as there has been more spam sent and received than in any other year. eWeek reported Monday Dec 15th that a judge in California ruled to allow pop up spammers to continue to operate for the time being. One spammer, in particular, was sending Windows Messenger Service popups to PCs that were not running a firewall or had the service turned on (it's on by default in Windows XP/2000). The ruling may trigger more spammers to try their hand at that kind of advertising.…

http://www.pcmag.com/print_article/0,3048,a=115069,00.asp

Microsoft Security FAQ :
"TOP Frequently Asked Questions

Note that this is NOT a complete list of all the questions answered in the FAQ.
Chances are, your question has probably already been answered. If your question is not listed below, you may want to see the complete table of contents at: http://securityadmin.info/faq.htm#contents "

http://securityadmin.info/faq.asp

Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2003 (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox):
"Sites are getting better at using minimalist design, maintaining archives, and offering comprehensive services. However, these advances entail their own usability problems, as several prominent mistakes from 2003 show. "

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20031222.html

Rapid Application Development with Mozilla: Navigation. Pt. 1 - WebReference.com -:
"This chapter is from the book 'Rapid Application Development with Mozilla' Nigel McFarlane. (ISBN 0131423436). "

http://www.webreference.com/programming/mozilla/

Threat From Sober Variant Grows:
"A variant of the Sober mass-mailing worm appears to be gaining more traction as leading security vendors increase their threat levels.

Increasing prevalence of the W32/Sober.C worm prompted Network Associates Inc. on Sunday to raise its risk assessment to medium from low. Sober.C is most active in Germany, where e-mail security vendor MessageLabs Inc. said 83 percent of samples had originated."

Other security vendors all have rated Sober.C's threat as low or medium. F-Secure Corp. tagged it a medium threat, ranking it a level 2 threat out of three. Symantec Corp. rated it as a level 2 threat out of five, or a low threat. MessageLabs also consider the risk "low," while saying that it has intercepted a "significant number of copies" of the worm.

Sober.C first appeared on Saturday, and New York-based MessageLabs reported its highest number of interceptions of the worm on Sunday.

Sober.C, once activated, e-mails itself to a user's Microsoft Outlook address book and sends outgoing messages through its own SMTP engine, said Network Associates, of Santa Clara, Calif. Along with e-mail, Sober.C can spread through peer-to-peer filing sharing networks.…

Sober.C, written in Visual Basic, can infect systems running Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT and Windows Server 2003.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1420314,00.asp

In 1998, President Clinton noted that "information technology now accounts for more than a third of our economic growth, and government should follow one guiding principle: First, do no harm."

News: New threat to Net's future?:
"In complex political systems, the objective of an action can be honorable, but the impact of an action can be completely at odds with the objective. This is largely because the tools we use to encourage behavior in such systems are often crude and imprecise.

On Oct. 6, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in the case of Brand X Internet v. the Federal Communications Commission that has the potential to delay the progress of the Internet in the United States by certainly years and potentially decades. Through its actions, the 9th Circuit has 'invited' the 50 independent and natural bureaucratic state-based public utility commissions directly into the fold of the Internet. "

How the 9th Circuit accomplished this feat is both curious and confusing. The case in question deals with whether cable lines that deliver Internet service can be considered a "telecommunications service." This wording is critical, because Congress and the FCC have made it clear that states can regulate "telecommunications services," but must keep their hands off "information services."

In 1998, the same year Clinton made his declaration, the city of Portland mandated that AT&T, as a requirement for approval of its acquisition of TCI, open up its broadband lines to competitive carriers. Ruling on this in 2000, the 9th Circuit stated that the city of Portland could not mandate this behavior, as its jurisdiction was over cable franchises, and these broadband connections did not technically represent a cable franchise.

But the 9th Circuit did not stop there. It made one more historical but seemingly unnecessary step. It declared cable modem service a "telecommunications service."

The FCC was compelled to react to the 9th Circuit Court's assertion, as it flew in the face of the FCC position on this matter, as well as the clear intent of Congress and the Executive Branch. (Both had echoed a desire to keep the Internet unregulated.) In 2002, in an effort to clarify and correct the decision in Portland, the FCC ruled that cable modem services are "interstate information services" and not "telecommunication services." Seven different petitions for review of the FCC's "information services" ruling were filed in the 3rd, 9th and D.C. Circuits. Under the multicircuit rules, a judicial lottery was held, and the 9th Circuit was ironically elected to rule on the FCC's ruling.


http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107_2-5130490.html

SecurityFocus HOME Infocus: Firewall Evolution - Deep Packet Inspection:
"Deep Packet Inspection is a term used to describe the capabilities of a firewall or an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to look within the application payload of a packet or traffic stream and make decisions on the significance of that data based on the content of that data. The engine that drives deep packet inspection typically includes a combination of signature-matching technology along with heuristic analysis of the data in order to determine the impact of that communication stream. While the concept of deep packet inspection sounds very nice it is not so simple to achieve in practice. The inspection engine must use a combination of signature-based analysis techniques as well as statistical, or anomaly analysis, techniques. Both of these are borrowed directly from intrusion detection technologies. In order to identify traffic at the speeds necessary to provide sufficient performance newer ASICs will have to be incorporated into existing firewall designs. These ASICs, or Network Processors Units (NPUs), provide for fast discrimination of content within packets while also allowing for data classification. Deep Packet Inspection capable firewalls must not only maintain the state of the underlying network connection but also the state of the application utilizing that communication channel."

http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1716

FAQ: Firewall Forensics (What am I seeing?):
"This document explains what you see in firewall logs, especially what port numbers means. You can use this information to help figure out what hackers are up to.

This document is intended for both security-experts maintaining corporate firewalls as well as home users of personal firewalls. "

http://www.secinf.net/firewalls_and_VPN/FAQ_Firewall_Forensics_What_am_I_seeing_.html

News: IE fix mends flawed open-source patch:
"A Web site that published a third-party patch to fix a security hole in Microsoft's Internet Explorer has had to reissue the patch, after the original was found to be flawed.

Openwares.org published the second patch Saturday, after the first was found to contain a buffer overflow exploit. This exploit, which allowed an attacker to take control of the patched PC, might have been far more damaging than the flaw the patch aimed to fix."

The IE vulnerability, which was first reported in late November, allows a browser to display one URL in the address bar while the page that's being viewed is actually hosted elsewhere, making the user more susceptible to ruses like "phishing," in which spoof e-mails direct people to fake Web sites that seem to belong to legitimate companies. However, Openwares' first fix, which worked by filtering out any URLs containing suspicious characters, would work only with addresses that had less than 256 bytes. Larger addresses produced a buffer overflow.

Openwares' administrator said: "The new version has been rewritten and tested by dozens of users who helped out. If you're unsure, look at the new source code for yourself."

By early morning Monday, there had been 2,500 downloads of the new patch. However, this is a minute fraction of IE users, who make up more than 90 percent of the Internet population.

Microsoft has still not released a fix for the IE problem or given any indication as to when one might be available. In October, the Redmond, Wash., software maker adopted a policy of releasing only one patch each month, but it has already announced that it will be skipping its December release; IE is expected to remain vulnerable until at least mid-January.

Earlier in December, weeks after the IE flaw was discovered, Iain Mulholland, a security program manager at Microsoft, said the company was putting heavy emphasis on increasing the quality of its patches and that the approach has had an effect on the timing of releases.…

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5130708.html

Op-Ed Contributors: Good Nukes, Bad Nukes:
"The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is arguably the most popular treaty in history: except for five states, every nation in the world is part of it. For more than three decades, it has helped curb the spread of nuclear weapons.

Since 9/11, however, and especially in the last several months, the viability of the treaty has been called into question. Some say it is obsolete. Others say it is merely ineffective. In support of its argument each side cites the situation in Iran, which has been able to advance a nuclear weapons program despite being a member of the treaty."

Early Word on Amazon ‘Stores’:
"AS in other recent holiday seasons, Amazon.com Inc. this year has successfully peddled the staples - books, music and videos - of online gift shoppers. But how about those alligator tenderloins, Callaway drivers and Mikimoto pearls? Amazon.com is wrapping up its first holiday season in which it has featured such goods and others in distinct 'stores,' or categories. Since September it has opened four stores: gourmet food, sporting goods, jewelry and watches, and (just last week) health and personal care. Retailers who are participating in the new stores and analysts who have watched them closely said Amazon.com's sales in those categories had shown promise."

"We're hearing that sales are good, not great," said Carrie A. Johnson, an analyst with Forrester Research, a technology consulting firm. "But they're good enough, and that's the key for retailers who've spent a lot of time integrating with Amazon."

Amazon.com's new stores collect items from other merchants, occasionally alongside goods already sold by Amazon. For instance, the jewelry-and-watches store features items from Mondera, Fortunoff and Ross-Simons, with pearl necklaces and other goods stocked and sold by Amazon.com.

When customers make purchases on Amazon.com from another merchant, Amazon.com sends the order to the merchant, which then ships the items. In exchange for offering their goods to Amazon.com's shoppers - more than 15 million visitors a week during the holiday season, according to Media Metrix - merchants typically pay Amazon.com a commission of 7 percent to 15 percent on each sale, according to Forrester. If an item fails to satisfy a customer, it is the responsibility of the merchant that shipped the product to receive the customer service call.

Amazon.com's senior vice president for worldwide retail, Diego Piacentini, would not disclose sales goals for the new stores. But the merchants that have joined Amazon.com have high hopes, if not for sales directly from the partnership, then for increased awareness and acceptance of their goods among mainstream shoppers. The gourmet food category may stand to benefit most from Amazon.com's participation.

"Beyond the big names like Harry & David or Omaha Steaks, this category is incredibly fragmented by small mom-and-pop businesses," Ms. Johnson of Forrester said. "Now the small players have the opportunity to reach many more customers online, and customers can find all of them in one place."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/22/technology/22ecom.html?pagewanted=all&position=

New Economy: Offshore Jobs in Technology: Opportunity or a Threat?:
"The United States economy is finally getting stronger, but there seems to be one unsettling weakness: the apparent wholesale flight of technology jobs like computer programming and technical support to lower-cost nations, led by India.

The trend is typically described in ungainly terms - as 'offshore outsourcing' or 'offshoring.' But that rhetorical hurdle has done nothing to lessen the recent public debate and expressions of angst over this kind of job migration. There are some early signs of political reaction. Last month, for example, the State of Indiana pulled out of a $15 million contract with an Indian company to provide technology services. And a proposed bill in New Jersey would restrict the use of offshore workers by companies doing work for the state."

Forrester Research, a technology consulting firm, published a report this month pointing out that the movement abroad is only gradual. The firm bemoaned "the rising tide of offshore hype." Yet Forrester itself played a significant role in framing the debate on offshore outsourcing, as well as stirring fears, with a report last year. That report, published in November 2002, predicted that 3.3 million services jobs in America would move offshore by 2015, and added that the information technology industry will "lead the initial overseas exodus."

So what is really happening? Is the offshore outsourcing of technology jobs a cataclysmic jolt or a natural evolution of the economy?

The short answer is that the trend is real, irreversible and another step in the globalization of the American economy. It does present a challenge to industry, government and individual workers. But the shifting of some technology jobs abroad fits into a well-worn historical pattern of economic change and adjustment in the United States.

"To be competitive and to maintain and improve American living standards, we have to move up the technology food chain," said Craig R. Barrett, the chief executive of Intel.

That may seem like easy advice from someone perched at the top of the food chain, but Intel represents a good example of a company that successfully navigated an earlier round of threats from international competition, from Japan in the 1980's.

In the early 1980's, Japanese chip makers appeared to be taking the semiconductor industry by storm, supported by their banks and their government. The Japanese were focused on the market for memory chips, which store data. At the time, Intel was getting battered and still received much of its revenues from memory chips. It made a bet-the-company decision, abandoned the memory-chip business and focused on microprocessors, the bit-processing engines in personal computers.

The bet, of course, paid off as the personal computer business blossomed. In retrospect, Intel's triumph might seem to be a foregone conclusion. But it did not necessarily look that way back then. Remember, those were the days when the term Japan Inc. struck fear in corporate boardrooms across America, and there was a resonant ring to the bleak prognosis of the nation's economic future by the former vice president, Walter F. Mondale: "What are our kids supposed to do? Sweep up around Japanese computers and sell McDonald's hamburgers the rest of their lives?"

It did not quite work out that way, did it? Today, the overseas challenge in technology services comes from linking nations with strong education systems like China, India and Russia with the global economy. The Internet is a big part of the phenomenon. The spread of high-speed Internet connections in the last few years has meant that Indian programmers are a mouse-click away from American corporations that are eager to cut their software development costs.

The salary comparisons are striking. A programmer in the United States would earn about $80,000 a year on average, compared with $20,000 or less in India. But analysts say the actual cost savings on a development project are not proportionate. Whole stages of a project - analysis, design and deployment - typically require face-to-face meetings. Communications and cultural differences add to costs and sometimes reduce effectiveness.

On a typical corporate software project, employing 40 programmers for a year, the savings from offshore outsourcing in India would be more in the range of 20 to 40 percent less than employing higher priced labor in the United States, estimates Joseph Feiman, an analyst at Gartner Inc., a research firm. Sometimes, American services firms with special expertise are the preferred choice, despite higher labor costs.

"The math of looking only at salaries is just wrong," Mr. Feiman said. "And it is a prevalent misconception."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/22/technology/22neco.html?pagewanted=all&position=