Some years back, a group at the University of Illinois caused a stir by using a custom computer program to solve the long-standing four-color conjecture. The program classified thousands of different cases, raising concerns about verifiability; since no human could reproduce the computer's work, could the alleged proof be trusted?
There's no such question about EQP's recent accomplishment. EQP, a program developed at Argonne National Labs, has proven a 63-year old conjecture. The 8-day calculation generated a short, easily verifiable proof that Robbins Algebras (a particular type of logical system) are also Boolean (if you negate something twice, you get what you started with).
Theorem provers are also finding uses outside of academia. The Convince toolset relies on an automated theorem prover to analyze cryptographic protocols. The theorem prover is used to prove statements about a protocol such as "The client believes it is talking to the correct server."
-- Tim Kientzle
When Princeton's Ed Felten and his group released a report last December on "web spoofing," people took notice. Several articles in the press and on the Internet warned readers of this "new" and "serious" security flaw discovered by Felten and his team.
Felten essentially stated in his report (available at http://www.cs.princeton.edu/sip/) that someone could create a fake web site that looked like another web site and that captured information from the user -- such as passwords and other personal information -- before sending the user to the actual site.
While this is indeed an inherent flaw of the World Wide Web, the hype following Felten's report was ridiculous. The problem was not a technical one, but one of social engineering. Password catchers, such as fake login programs, have been around for a long time, especially in the UNIX world. Another ageless technique is "shoulder surfing" -- looking over people's shoulders as they enter their passwords -- perhaps one of the most effective password-cracking techniques.
While Felten and his team should be commended for bringing these flaws to people's attention, reporters need to actually start reading reports before warning the masses of similar "new" and "technically complex" problems.
-- Eugene Eric Kim
Member countries of the World Trade Organization have agreed to eliminate tariffs on computers, software, and related goods, a real win for U.S. high-tech companies selling their wares in international markets. But what led to the final agreement was the United States' agreement to lower tariffs on European cognac, whiskey, and other liquors.
-- Jonathan Erickson
By connecting more than 7000 Pentium Pro processors into an experimental massively parallel machine, Intel scientists have broken the 1 trillion (1.06 teraflops) floating-point calculations per second barrier. When completed, the computer, which is being built at Intel's Beaverton, Oregon, plant, will connect more than 9000 Pentium Pros and be used by Sandia National Labs to simulate nuclear explosions. The supercomputer is the first step in the government's plan to build a 100-teraflop computer within the next decade.
-- Monica Berg
A petition to cancel has been filed with the Trademark Trial and Appeals Board in regards to the U.S. trademark on the name "LINUX" for a computer operating system. The trademark, granted to William R. Della Croce, Jr., has been challenged by attorney G. Gervaise Davis III, of the Davis & Schroeder law firm (Monterey, California) on behalf of Workgroup Solutions, Yggdrasil Computing, Specialized Systems Consultants, Linux International, and Linus Torvalds. The basis of the challenge is that the trademark registration is fraudulent and was obtained under false pretenses. In applying for the trademark, Della Croce claimed, under penalty of perjury, that he is the owner and first user of the mark for operating systems, and that he was not aware in 1994 or 1995 of any other person who might claim or be using this name and mark for an operating system. Della Croce is currently demanding 10 percent royalties on sales from businesses marketing Linux-related products. The petition to cancel is available at http://www.iplawyers.com/.
-- Jonathan Erickson
Business travelers with laptop computers will have Internet access in an increasing number of hotels. Big hotel chains such as Hyatt, Hilton, and Marriott are beginning to remodel blocks of rooms at selected hotels to deliver direct (nondialup) Internet access. One of the first hotels to offer the new services is the Hilton Hotel at the San Francisco Airport. By providing direct access to the Internet, hotels hope to avoid the growing problem of overloaded phone lines. Whereas hotel phone calls once averaged about seven minutes, business travelers now often tie up lines for up to three hours per call. Internet-ready rooms will, of course, cost slightly more than regular, upscale rooms.
-- Deirdre Blake
In the midst of Apple's well-publicized upheavals, there is at least one bright star -- Apple's Interactive Media Group can proudly point to the overwhelming success of its QuickTime products, and not just on MacOS. For instance, over 74 percent of movies on the Web use QuickTime, and VRML 2.0 is based heavily on Apple's 3DMF format. QuickTime isn't just for movies, either; it provides a number of basic, extensible services for time synchronization, compression management, and 3-D graphics. Apple's commitment to multiplatform QuickTime on MacOS, OS/2, SGI, and Windows simplifies the development of multiplatform, multimedia CD-ROMs.
But the release of the full QuickTime system for Windows could have other effects. In particular, since Windows PCs are more common than Macs in industrial settings, it will be interesting to see if QuickTime gains a following for process control; a QuickTime "movie" is essentially just a timed series of instructions, which could interact with a milling machine just as easily as a camcorder.
-- Tim Kientzle