News Summary for Thursday Oct 5, 2006 by Robert Danek. 
Articles from the New York Times. 

1. "Europeans Berate Bank Group and Overseer for U.S. Access to Data." (page A11)

Summary:
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In order to combat terrorism, the United States has been acquiring confidential banking records from the European Union for a number of years. The Belgian privacy commission and legislators in Europe were upset that SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) was willingly giving the records to U.S. without knowledge of the European Union or its citizens. Under European law, private information such as financial transactions can only be shared with countries that offer certain protections for the data -- the U.S. is not such a country. 


Implications + Research Idea: 
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While we believe we enjoy a certain amount of anonymity in our everyday business transactions, this is not really the case. Research needs to be done on how to properly ensure the anonymity of participants in business transactions that are conducted electronically. 

2. "$10 Million Prize Set Up for Speedy DNA Decoding" (page A24)

Summary:
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The X-Prize Foundation established a $10 million prize for being able to cheaply and rapidly sequence the human genome. Previous efforts for sequencing the genome done by the U.S. Government and Dr. Venter of the Venter Institute cost around $500 million to complete. If cheap and rapid sequencing of the human genome could be done, then one could sequence a person's genome as part of a regular medical check-up. 

Implications + Research Idea:
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There's a lot of computing power available on the internet. Harnessing it effectively is one possible way of attacking the problem of sequencing a human genome. Research needs to be done on how to distribute the work to the different computers in the network and how to maximize the use of those computers without disrupting other users making use of them. BOINC (Berkley Open Infrastructure For Network Computing) is one example of a project that has made progress in this area. 

3. "Microsoft Crackdown On Piracy" (page C4)

Summary:
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In earlier versions of the Windows operating system, if the copy being run was discovered to be pirated, the OS would nag the user to purchase a legitimate copy. However, in its new Vista operating system, Microsoft will start crippling the system's functionality. On a pirated system, the user would be limited to using the IE browser for 1 hour at a time, and not have access to any other parts of their system. 

Implications + Research Idea:
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Software piracy is a wide-spread problem. One way that piracy occurs is through the copying of software through a network. Is it possible to build a network that can prevent the transfer of pirated copies of software?