European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 7, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Tuesday december 7, 1993 computers the stars and stripes Page 11information Highway robbers by John Markoff the new York times san Francisco a the vision of a National information superhighway is being threatened by a group of Anonymous computer intruders who have broken into hundreds of University government and commercial computers in recent months Bede Iling Many of the nations computer managers. The attacks which became Public several weeks ago when an on line service in new York City was forced to shut Down for three Days Jive alarmed Security experts who say this has exposed fundamental weaknesses in the Security of internet an International computer network that is widely viewed As the forerunner of the nation s data Highway. Quot the pervasive nature of this thing is startling but not surprising Quot said Peter Neumann a computer scientist and Security expert at sri International a research Center in Menlo Park Calif. Quot the vendors and the system administrators Are Way behind the Power curve. The fact is everyone on the internet is getting hit Quot. A a. A the intruders have been Able to obtain passwords for hundreds or even thousands of computers that Are attached to internet which connects More than two million computers at universities corporations and government Sites around the world. The pervasive nature of this thing is startling but not surprising a computer scientist Peter Neumann Quot the extent of this in t appreciated by the people who should know better Quot said Alexis Rosen president of panic Public Access system a new York City on line service which was attacked last month the problems Are sobering because Simitar Security _ by i a television experiments of Cable television and Tele technologies Are being used by most of the interactive phone companies eager to set services like on line banking and Home shopping a people see the glitter and the Glamour of the information Highway but they done to see the risk a a said Eugene Spafford a computer scientist and director of a Purdue University Security Center. Quot the vast majority of people have never really bothered to think carefully about what they May have to lose and what exposure they Are taking for themselves by connecting to the  on oct. 18, the staff of panic Public Access found that an intruder had secretly inserted a rogue program into one their computers. The program was designed to watch network data communications and record password information in a secret file. In recent years dozens of Small commercial on line service providers like panic have sprung up around the country to give computer users Access to internet. In addition to electronic mail this permits users to read computer bulletin boards and Exchange software and documents. They arc part of an explosion of network services that arc being used by an increasing number of american businesses for electronic Commerce. Computer site administrators said they had no accurate estimates of How Many systems had been compromised in the attacks or whether information had been stolen. Several computer Sites said they had notified the Fri which along with the secret service has jurisdiction Over computer break ins. However there is Little information about where the intruders Are or even whether the break ins arc the work of an individual or a group working together. This kind of attack is known by computer Security re searchers As a Quot Trojan  it permits an illegal user to collect the passwords of legitimate users As they connect to other computers Over the network. Once armed with the passwords the intruder can enter other computers. A 50 million cd rooms Terre haute ind. Up Sony corps digital audio disc corp. Celebrated last the production of its 50 Millionth cd rom disk underscoring the growth of the booming Market for interactive products. The Plant in Terre haute was the first cd manufacturing Plant in the United states and has been expanded to five times its original size. Quot As the compact disk in the �?T80s revolutionized the Way we listen to music another digital medium cd rom is bringing interactive excitement to the information education and entertainment industries worldwide Quot said Michael p. Schulhof pres ident and chief executive officer of Sony corp. Of America James m. Frische chairman and ceo of dad said his company is the leading manufacturer every form of digital Media. He also said production lines will continue to expand. Cd rooms which have the capacity to store immense amounts of information and. Video has posted dramatic growth in the last two years. Dad opened As the first . Cd manufacturing facility in 1984 and began producing cd rooms in 1986. Since then cd rom production has grown by at least 120 percent annually. Olaf Olafsson president of Sony electronic publishing co., said the cd rom Market will continue the same growth Pace through the end of the decade. Quot the International multimedia Market has virtually exploded in the past two years As cd rom a with its enormous capacity for information presentation and creativity a has become widely accepted Quot Olafsson  shuffle Scott Mccaly chairman and ceo of Sun Micro systems rearranges a pair of corporate logo blocks As Steve jobs chairman of next looks on recently in Redwood City Calif the pair announced that Sun will invest in its one time rival s  lost a and gained a in translation by Joe fasb1nder United press International Quirky software is not always bad software. Global Ink a Power translator software is a Good example of Why this is so. Consider for example that the glob link people in Fairfax va., have gone against conventional Wisdom by copy it protecting this product. Few people copy protect software anymore because it ends to generate anger among people who want to move software from one Marine to another. Power translator is designed to trans ate documents from Spanish to English r English to Spanish or from French to English or English to French or German or russian. It works reasonably Well. But t is Quirky. Back to copy Protection global Ink uses copy Protection to present people making unauthorized copies of their software. It might be troublesome but it works. The Type of copy Protection used on Power translator is also something you probably Haven to seen often. No where during the installation portion of the program Are you warned that this is cop protected software. So the temptation is there to install the program see How it works and then erase All the files and directories figuring that you can install everything again later. To do this is to do something that hackers often Call a bad thing with capital letters. Because if you did this you would find yourself sadly unable to install Power translator again on this or any other computer without placing a Call to technical support. Granted there is a big bold faced Box inside the instruction manual that tells you that if you want to transport the program from one machine to another you have to Quot uninstall Quot it first using a process described in the manual. But in the real world people often done to read the instruction manual when they re installing the software. On the upside technical support is at an 800 number something that few software companies provide these Days. You also  use Power translator if you re planning to use disk com pression software at the same time on your computer. That a because doing so will foul up Power translator s Security routine. There s another quirk in this program you can to install it from the Dos Shell in windows. The program will Tell you that you have to exit windows and go to a real Dos prompt to do the installation. And you can to use Power translator while you re on a local area network. You have to log off the net to install or use Power translator. In effect you have to have a very Plain computer on which to run this language translation software. However once you install Power translator on your very1 Plain computer it works just Fine. It does still have a quirk or two but they re minor. For instance there a no mouse support whatsoever. The feeling of the program is the same As you get with something like word Star 3.3 a like something that was written Long ago for a not very powerful machine but Power translator works like a real modern Day powerful word Cruncher the kind that often Cost More than a Kil Obuck in the real world. Power translator is simple intuitive and you can go right from typing the word Quot install to actually translating documents in something less than 20 minutes without Reading the manual if you want to. Recognition is about 90 percent in Many cases a if the document you re translating is written in Clear English in the first place. Phrases like a Bull Market Quot can be entered in a special dictionary so that you can get them translated right every time you use them. With a reasonably fast 486-based computer a document the size of this column would take about four minutes to process. The output comes with unknown words flagged so that you can edit them out. So even with its quirks Power translator is Well Worth the $199 suggested retail Price. Just be careful about accidentally erasing files