News From May 18 2002

Technical, Business and Product News from the Modern Computer World... Updated Once Per Month

A Japanese cryptographer has demonstrated how fingerprint recognition devices can be fooled using a combination of low cunning, cheap kitchen supplies and a digital camera.

First Tsutomu Matsumoto used gelatine (as found in Gummi Bears and other sweets) and a plastic mould to create a fake finger, which he found fooled fingerprint detectors four times out of five.

Flushed with his success, he took latent fingerprints from a glass, which he enhanced with a cyanoacrylate adhesive (super-glue fumes) and photographed with a digital camera. Using PhotoShop, he improved the contrast of the image and printed the fingerprint onto a transparency sheet.

Here comes the clever bit.

Matsumoto took a photo-sensitive printed-circuit board (which can be found in many electronic hobby shops) and used the fingerprint transparency to etch the fingerprint into the copper.

From this he made a gelatine finger using the print on the PCB, using the same process as before. Again this fooled fingerprint detectors about 80 per cent of the time.

Fingerprint biometric devices, which attempt to identify people on the basis of their fingerprint, are touted as highly secure and almost impossible to fool but Matsumoto's work calls this comforting notion into question. The equipment he used is neither particularly hi-tech, nor expensive and if Matsumoto can pull off the trick what would corporate espionage boffins be capable of?

Matsumoto tried these attacks against eleven commercially available fingerprint biometric systems, and was able to reliably fool all of them.

Noted cryptographer Bruce Schneier, the founder and CTO of Counterpane Internet Security, described Matsumoto's work as more than impressive.

"The results are enough to scrap the systems completely, and to send the various fingerprint biometric companies packing," said Schneier in yesterday's edition of his Crypto-Gram newsletter, which first publicised the issue.

In a campaign to compete directly with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) Office, Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW - news) released its new StarOffice suite of applications Wednesday, touting the package as an alternative to proprietary software and noting that StarOffice has fewer licensing restrictions.

With enterprise pricing as low as US$25, StarOffice 6.0 can run on Linux (news - web sites), Solaris and Windows platforms and will retail for US$79.95 -- compared with US$479 for Microsoft Office Standard or US$239 for an MS Office upgrade.

Earlier this year, Sun promised to release a more robust application with better customer support than version 5.2, which the company has offered since it acquired the StarOffice product line in 1999.

Using open and published XML (extensible markup language), documents created in StarOffice can be opened, modified and shared with other programs, such as Office XP.

StarOffice is created from the same software as OpenOffice, an open source project developed by Sun and others in which code is changed and shared among programmers.

Sun Cites Demand
Mike Rogers, vice president and general manager of desktop and office productivity software at Sun Microsystems, said earlier versions of StarOffice registered more than 8 million downloads, indicating that customers are demanding an alternative to Microsoft Office.

"Our enterprise customers worldwide are asking for freedom of choice, and we're giving it to them with StarOffice 6.0 -- freedom from restrictive licensing and freedom from unreasonable pricing and forced upgrades," Rogers said.

According to Sun, more than 1.8 million users in the enterprise, government and education sectors currently are evaluating the software. The company estimated an aggregate savings of $200 million in licensing costs for those users if they choose to replace Office with StarOffice.

...Sun also noted that such original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) as Hyundai, MandrakeSoft, SuSE Linux, Turbolinux and Ximian are planning to include StarOffice 6.0 in their product offerings.

...Rob Perry, senior analyst at the Yankee Group, told NewsFactor that it is unlikely Microsoft is "losing any sleep" over Sun's StarOffice launch.

"The desktop productivity market [race] is over. Microsoft owns it, unless the platform changes to something else and Windows goes away," Perry said.

Price Point Effect Unclear
Despite StarOffice's low price, Perry said he does not believe that companies currently using Office will switch to Sun's offering.

"The price of the application is not that important compared to the cost of retraining people," Perry said. "If you have to relearn these applications, it costs you much more than $400 in productivity loss.

...Perry added that with its new, more restrictive licensing and registration policies, Microsoft is trying its best to put an end to sharing. Its efforts so far, however, have had little effect beyond simply raising consumers' ire.

...At issue is a decision expected next Tuesday by the U.S. Copyright Office on whether to accept, reject or modify royalty rates for Internet-only broadcasters. The Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) has set the rates for Internet-only broadcasters at $1.40 per song heard by 1,000 listeners — retroactive to 1998.

...A federal plan that could force Internet radio stations to pay high royalties on the songs they play would lead to the death of the emerging business, industry advocates said Wednesday.

"No one, neither the creators nor the webcasters, benefits from artificially inflated rates that only a few webcasters can afford," said Jonathan Potter, executive director of the Digital Media Association.

However, recording industry representatives told the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) that musicians shouldn't subsidize webcasters by not being paid fairly for songs played on Internet stations.

"The recording industry and artist representatives feel that the royalty rate, which is based on the number of performances and listeners, rather than on a percentage of revenue model, is too low," said Leahy, D-Vt.

However, "many of the webcasters have declared that this per-performance approach, and the rate attached to it, will bankrupt the small operations and drain the large ones," he added.

Leahy suggested that Congress might step in again. "Why can't everyone, Congress and artists and labels and webcasters alike, take the CARP as a genuine learning experience and sit down and determine what is the next best step?" he asked.

Traditional radio broadcasters are exempt from paying the new royalties, which would go to recording labels and musicians.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - No. 1 video game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. on Wednesday said its franchise "Madden NFL" football series will support the launch of online play for Sony Corp (news - web sites).'s PlayStation 2 (news - web sites) later this year, but will not do so for Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox (news - web sites).

The two companies have touted online gameplay as the next key frontier for home video gaming because of the ongoing revenue potential as well as a way to turn the game console into an Internet gateway for the TV. Both are expected to heavily promote their services in the coming weeks.

...However, the same support will not be initially forthcoming for "Xbox Live," Microsoft's upcoming online service for the Xbox, which already has a broadband adapter built in.

...Both Sony and Microsoft cut the prices of their consoles this week, to $199 from $299. While Sony does not plan to charge for online play, leaving that choice to publishers, Microsoft reportedly plans to operate its own gaming network and charge a monthly fee.

The PS2 has a North American installed base of more than 11 million units, while the Xbox, which came out a year later, has an estimated base of more than 2 million units.

The third major game console, Nintendo (news - web sites) Co. Ltd.'s GameCube, is already $199. Adapters for online play for the GameCube are expected this fall.

...Those analysts have said Microsoft might have some natural advantage in adding early subscribers because the online access is built in, and historically game console owners have been reluctant to purchase major add-ons for their consoles.

Users of Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT - news)'s Windows operating systems are told repeatedly to keep up to date on software patches and updates, and those who do not upgrade often are blamed when viruses or hackers exploit reported vulnerabilities.

However, for many users, downloading updates for the Redmond, Washington-based software maker's latest and greatest operating system, Windows XP (news - web sites), means crashed systems, devices that do not work and and sometimes an inability to boot up at all.

But even taking into account Windows XP's update problems and other issues, some analysts contend that, on the whole, the operating system has lived up to Microsoft's billing as the best OS the company ever has produced.

...Gartner (NYSE: IT - news) research director John Pescatore told NewsFactor that... on the consumer side there have been consistent reports of problems with peripheral drivers, including printer drivers.

Pescatore advised Windows XP users to avoid automatic updates, which he said take control out of users' hands and pose the potential for security holes.

"In general, automatic functions where your computer is talking over the Internet without you knowing it are generally bad things," Pescatore said.

Fixes Elusive
There are ways to fix Windows XP and third-party devices when they have been disrupted by an "update," using the new "driver restore" and "system restore" functions. But neither method is as simple as updating, according to Enderle.

"Fortunately, the 'system restore' function takes care of [system upsets]. But a lot of people don't know it exists," he said.

Users also can deal with problem drivers by reverting to earlier, built-in versions, Enderle noted. He added, however, that "a lot of folks don't like to get into the guts of the operating system."

Patience for Patches
...Kleynhans said that unless companies or consumers are left vulnerable by not patching right away, it is more advisable to wait for a service pack, which is more thoroughly tested, rather than trying to update their operating systems piecemeal.

"Unless there is a compelling reason that you need a patch -- like security -- and [not patching is] not causing significant pain, it's better to wait," Kleynhans said.

Product Name: BlackBerry 5810
Street price: $499 plus $20 activation fee and monthly service fee

When Research In Motion announced in March that it was adding phone capabilities to its popular BlackBerry platform, we were intrigued. We are big fans of the company's push e-mail system for corporations, and the RIM BlackBerry 5810 ($500 street plus $20 activation fee and monthly service fee) promised to combine into one handy device a lot of the features mobile business pros need—a personal organizer, corporate and personal e-mail access, GSM/GPRS wireless phone service, short-message sending and receiving (SMS) capability, WAP browsing, and support for custom enterprise apps—into one handy device.

We recently got our hands on one of the first production-level evaluation units. The core BlackBerry functions make this a compelling communicator, but the phone component—arguably the most important addition—is less convenient than it could be.

The drawback: There is no built-in microphone or speaker. To make or receive a call you need to plug in the included headset. If you don't keep it plugged in, you have to have it handy or you'll miss phone calls. In this regard, the 5810 is a less successful, albeit smaller, all-in-one design than, say, the Handspring Treo line. One advantage to RIM's design, though, is that you can see and use its PDA features while on the phone. Still, frequent phone users hoping to pare down to one device will probably find the separate headset bothersome.

...The 5810 uses the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) operating system, and its enterprise e-mail system is unchanged from prior RIM BlackBerry Enterprise messenger models. This platform's key feature is the always-on push e-mail that works through desktop PC redirection or via the BlackBerry Enterprise Server that integrates with Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino servers.

The key differences from previous BlackBerries are voice service, SMS, and the BlackBerry Web Client, which supports POP3 e-mail integration. Being able to receive personal and corporate e-mail on the same mobile device is especially useful. Like its predecessors, the BlackBerry 857 and 957, the 4.8-ounce, 4.6- by 3.1- by 0.7-inch (HWD) 5810 has a highly visible backlit monochrome display, a jog dial for easy screen navigation, a back button, and a small, integrated backlit keyboard.

Records of voice call records, SMS messages, and e-mail all appear on the 5810's single Messages screen, a level of integration that facilitates managing incoming and outgoing messages. For example, if you receive an SMS message that also contains a phone number and e-mail addresses, you can easily reply using any of the three methods.

The BlackBerry Web Client, accessible via any browser, is used to configure e-mail settings such as filters and auto-signatures. You can also configure up to six POP3 e-mail accounts to forward e-mail to the RIM device.

If your business day involves frequent phone conversations, the BlackBerry 5810 may not be for you. But avid BlackBerry users and organizations with existing BlackBerry Enterprise Server users may choose the 5810 as a convenient, highly integrated communication device that handles multiple types of data plus the occasional voice call.