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RAIN 10/22: Weekend Update 2



There are 15 stories in this posting.

Washington Post 10/19/01
Safeguarding data gains new urgency
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18778-2001Oct18.html

by Dina El Boghdady
Since terrorists toppled the World Trade Center, Henry Chace has been carrying a copy of his law firm's entire computer database in his briefcase.
His Boston firm backs up all its work-related documents on tape every night. And a courier delivers the tapes for storage to another location once a week. But what if terrorists destroyed his building in between pickups?
Chace's temporary solution: "I take the tapes home every night," said the information technology director. "If I leave the building during the day, the briefcase comes with me."


Contra Costa Times 10/19/01
Shadelands Museum searches for director
http://www.contracostatimes.com/community/stories/403c_20011019.htm

by Alan Lopez
After 15 years, the executive director of the Shadelands Ranch Museum quit in late September, leaving the museum's advisory board looking for a new director.
In the meantime, Joyce Glentzer, a member of the Walnut Creek Historical Society's board of directors, is filling in, serving as the part-time director.
"Right now, we're doing what we need to do to keep the (museum) open," she said. "So now I've become a 'volunteer/temporary-one-day-a-week-volunteer-employee person.'"



Columbus Dispatch 10/18/01
Ohio checks on veterans' records
http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/news/news01/oct01/896987.html

by Jon Craig
Ohio Inspector General Thomas P. Charles says he has been assured that veterans' records processed by a company based in India did not leave the United States.
Charles said he received an affidavit from Prithvi Information Solutions swearing no Ohio records were sent overseas.
"However, I'm not done with the case. We want to do a little more checking,'' Charles said yesterday.
His investigation intensified last month because some of the hijackers involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon had stolen identities.



Darwin Oct 2001
The Elements of E-Mail Style
http://www.darwinmag.com/read/100101/ecosystem.html

by Scott Kirsner
WHEN SOMEONE RECEIVES an e-mail from you they don't just jump, they ask for a specific altitude. You've never had to send a message twice or pester someone by phone because they haven't responded to you electronically.
This column is not for you.
The compendium of advice that follows is for people whose e-mails sometimes don't get the attention they deserve. Heed it, and you'll be writing more effective messages that get better results-faster. Ignore it, and your e-mail will continue to fade into the background of recipients' inboxes, along with the offers to "Make Big $$$ Working from Your Linen Closet!!!"



Los Angeles Times Syndicate 10/19/01
A Backup plan
http://www.nando.com/technology/story/147238p-1438881c.html

by Lawrence J. Magid
Life is more important than data, but the events of Sept. 11 serve as a reminder of the need to protect sensitive information.
There are many elaborate ways to back up your system, but it doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. Some methods are relatively painless.
For starters, you don't need to back up the software and operating system from your PC's hard drive. Instead, make sure you have your original distribution CDs and, if you have access to a CD burner (CD-R or CD-RW drive), copy those CDs and store the copies away from your computer.



VUNET 10/19/01
NHS trusts in online bookings
http://www.vnunet.com/Features/1126277

Like many organisations that have to arrange appointments for customers, City Hospital NHS Trust in Birmingham found the administration of its manual system was labour-intensive and difficult to coordinate. The trust therefore decided to implement an online system to link doctors and NHS departments, to help them to book patients' appointments more quickly, and at times to suit everyone involved.
"The paper-based referral system suffered from time-delay constraints," says Millar Bownass, patient process director at City Hospital.



Wall Street Journal 10/19/01
Microsoft-backerd piracy crackdown strikes some as too heavy-handed
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1003444565356550240.htm

by Rebecca Buckman
The stern letter from the Business Software Alliance, a Washington, D.C., trade group, crossed Carl Gammon's desk in May. Mr. Gammon, who oversees technology decisions at a small medical-device manufacturer, was taken aback by the tone.
"This is just a quick reminder to let you know that -- if you are running unlicensed software -- you could become the subject of a BSA investigation," the missive declared.
Around the same time, Mr. Gammon's company, Minntech Corp. of Plymouth, Minn., received a similar letter from Microsoft Corp. -- a main backer of the BSA. Then, ominous-sounding BSA radio ads started running on stations in Mr. Gammon's area, warning that companies could be "only one phone call away" from an audit of the software they use. That's a potentially nerve-wracking process that could result in big fines.



Wall Street Journal 10/19/01
Recreating years of files, one application at a time
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/ComebackDiary.htm

by Aaron Elstein
Few companies on Wall Street were as devastated by the Sept. 11 attacks as Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc.: The investment bank, whose offices were on the 88th and 89th floors of World Trade Center 2, lost 67 of its 220 employees, including some of its most-talented analysts.
In the fourth installment in a continuing series, Chief Executive John Duffy tells The Wall Street Journal Online about his efforts to rebuild Keefe Bruyette:
We're working on recreating our employee files. A lot of that information was backed up on computers, and we can access that, but a lot of physical files were lost. So we're asking all our employees to fill out new applications and questionnaires, the kind you fill out when you come to look for a job for the first time. People who have worked here for years are filling them out, just like people who've been here for only a little while.



Topeka Capital-Journal 10/20/01
Haskell Cultural Center nears completion
http://cjonline.com/stories/102001/kan_culturecenter.shtml

by Paul Eakins
LAWRENCE -- The resources making the Haskell Cultural Center and Museum possible are as diverse as the university where it one day will open.
Donations in a variety of forms from across the United States are contributing to the construction of the center at Haskell Indian Nations University, where students from Indian tribes across the country attend school.
The $1.2 million center, which is a little more than a month from completion, is part of an effort by the American Indian College Fund to construct similar centers at Indian colleges around the country using donations from private and public institutions. Other donations for the construction of Haskell's 6,000-square-foot center have taken the form of materials, expertise and time.



Bowling Green Daily News 10/20/01
History Mystery
http://www.bgdailynews.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?/200110/20+history20011020_features.html+20011020+features

by Alicia Carmichael
For several years, in the early 1800s, the Rev. Joseph Lapsley looked over his flock at The Presbyterian Church in Bowling Green.
In death, it appears he looked over an infant - Joseph Underwood, who was born and died in 1833, and whose tiny, broken tombstone was pulled from the Lapsley family vault at Pioneer Cemetery on College Street in Bowling Green on Wednesday.
"Why those (pieces) were in that tomb, who knows?" said Jonathan Jeffrey, a special collections librarian at Western Kentucky University's Kentucky Library and a member of the Landmark Association in Bowling Green.



Charlotte Observer 10/20/01
District attorney, police share data in computer link
http://www.charlotte.com/observer/local/pub/records1020.htm

by Aileen Soper
GASTONIA -- A new computer hookup between the Gaston County district attorney's office and the county's two largest police departments will expedite prosecutors' review of investigative files and reduce paper-pushing, officials say.
The program, called the Law Records Management System, allows employees in the DA's office to view computerized records from the Gaston County Police and Gastonia Police.
The system was made possible by the joint computer network bought two years ago by the Gaston County and Gastonia city governments. Security concerns kept the computerized data-sharing from happening sooner.


Houston Chronicle 10/20/01
Environmentalists decry removal of useful information from Web after attacks
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/front/1097542

by Tony Freemantle
If the storage tank holding toxic methyl mercaptan were to fail at Shell Chemical Co.'s Deer Park plant, a poisonous cloud of gas would travel 6.7 miles downwind threatening schools, residences and a state park before dissipating.
Useful, maybe critical, information, if you happen to live in the neighborhood. Useful, too, if you were a terrorist scouring the area for a petrochemical target that would inflict maximum casualties.
Until Sept. 11, such information, known as an offsite consequence analysis, was readily available from government sites on the Internet, as was information about nuclear power plants, gas pipelines and a host of other potential terrorist targets.



Houston Chronicle 10/20/01
Data removed from Internet has way of hanging around
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/special/terror/front/1098311

Knight Ridder Newspapers
Steven Aftergood is a firm believer in the public's right to know. His life's work as a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C., is dedicated to making sure the government does not hide critical information.
Yet, like a slew of officials from government agencies and private organizations in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Aftergood has removed dozens of pages from his organization's site that he fears contained sensitive information and photographs that might be useful to terrorists.



The Morning Call 10/20/01
Man gets up to 10 years in prison for identify theft
http://www.mcall.com/html/news/easton/b_pg003b3_3walker.htm

by Tyra Braden
A Bethlehem man will spend up to 10 years in state prison for stealing the identity of a state lawmaker who co-sponsored a bill making identity theft a crime.
Brian A. Walker, 38, of 1761 Chester Road, apologized Friday before Northampton County President Judge Robert A. Freedberg. Walker stole the identity of state Rep. Matthew Baker of Tioga County to secure about $7,500 in loans and credit card purchases.



New York Times 10/20/01
Secret trove may resolve 'Copenhagen'
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/20/science/20COPE.html

by James Glanz
After more than half a century, historians and scientists still cannot agree on why the Nazis were never able to develop an atomic bomb, or on why the leader of their bomb program, the physicist Werner Heisenberg, visited his old mentor Niels Bohr in occupied Denmark in 1941.
The uncertainty about that meeting is at the center of the award- winning Broadway play "Copenhagen," by the British playwright Michael Frayn. Now, partly as a result of the attention generated by the play's success last year, the Bohr family plans to release previously unpublished, and largely undisclosed, documents by Bohr about the meeting, including a strongly worded letter he wrote to Heisenberg about it but never sent.


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