The Internet may have opened the world to us, but it’s a world we’d prefer to tour privately. We want the freedom to roam terrain on our own terms; and we want assurances we will leave no identifying footprints in our wake. We want our presence to remain faceless—albeit, nameless—in the crowd. Alas, that’s the […]
February 1999 - Vol. 42 No. 2
Features
The transfer of sensitive U.S. space technology to China is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, reports CNN. A preliminary Defense Department report found that Hughes Electronics gave China potentially damaging information after a Chinese rocket carrying a Hughes-built satellite crashed in 1995. After satellites belonging to Hughes and Loral were destroyed in two […]
Personal Computing: The Next Generation of Business Data Processing
Business data processing has evolved over the last 50 years. The first influential electronic computer, the Eniac, was designed to do numeric calculations. But the ink was barely dry on their patent applications when project leaders J. Presper Eckert and John W. Maulchly began designing the Univac, which was designed to process both numeric business […]
Electronic Frontier: The Privacy Hoax
Privacy in the digital age is dead. At best, one of our most cherished rights as members of a free society is on life support, kept alive by cybercratic ramblings of an electronic fringe unable to come to grips with reality. In a police lineup of the usual suspects fingered as the biggest privacy abusers, […]
Forum: More Ugly Truths About Consulting Assignments
I enjoyed reading Robert Glass’s column "How Not to Prepare for a Consulting Assignment, and Other Ugly Consultancy Truths" ("Practical Programmer," Dec. 1998, p. 11). From my perspective as an experienced software developer, Glass hit the nail on the head—as far as impossible schedules being a common problem and management not wanting to compromise schedule […]
How a professor of computer science returned after the country's civil war to help build the national information infrastructure—and her own career.
Privacy was a sensitive issue long before the advent of computers. Concerns have been magnified, however, by the existence and wide- spread use of large computer databases that make it easy to compile a dossier about an individual from many different data sources. Privacy issues are further exacerbated now that the World-Wide Web makes it […]
Anonymous Web Transactions with Crowds
An innovative way to become an invisible user is simply to get lost in the crowd. After all, anonymity loves company.
One way to camouflage communication over a public network is to mingle connections from a variety of users and applications to make them difficult to distinguish.
Consistent, Yet Anonymous, Web Access with LPWA
The Lucent Personalized Web Assistant offers a single, effective method for adopting differing personae.
The Platform For Privacy Preferences
Web sites can bolster user confidence by clarifying their privacy practices upfront, allowing visitors to become active players in the decision-making process.
TRUSTe: An Online Privacy Seal Program
A trustmark displayed on a home page informs visitors of the security practices conducted at the site.
Internet Privacy Concerns Confirm the Case For Intervention
Public confidence in matters of online privacy seemingly lessens as the Internet grows. Indeed, there is mounting evidence the necessary remedy may be a protective framework that includes (gulp) legislative provisions.
Y2k Compliance and the Distributed Enterprise
It's not just mainframe-based applications: servers and workstations pose significant Y2K problem risks for organizations and individuals.
The Realities of Software Technology Payoffs
Too few studies, and the benefits don't match the claims.
The Role of Trust in Outsourced IS Development Projects
Don't lose sight of the structure of the relationship between client and vendor, and don't be a stranger.
Technical Opinion: On Defining Computer Science Terminology
A general problem with computer science terminology is that some terms are often used for different concepts and that the same concepts are denoted by different terms. To a great extent, this is due to the rapid advances in computer science where new concepts need new names. We illustrate these issues by means of a […]
Inside Risks: Robust Open-Source Software
Closed-source proprietary software, which is seemingly the lifeblood of computer system entrepreneurs, tends to have associated risks: Unavailability of source code reduces on-site adaptability and repairability. Inscrutability of code prohibits open peer analysis (which otherwise might improve reliability and security), and masks the reality that state-of-the-art development methods do not produce adequately robust systems. Lack […]
