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News of the Week
for SDI and has wavered on the SSC. As for the tax credit, it has approved it only through one- or two-year extensions rather than making it permanent. Bush has said that he wants to be the education president and has endorsed programs to upgrade math and science education, particularly at the pre-college level. That's an idea that Congress, which has more than doubled the National Science Foundation's science and engineering education budget over the past four fiscal years, should find attractive.
The problem for science education and all the other federal R&D programs will be money. During his campaign, Bush repeatedly vowed that there would be "no new taxes" and no cuts in Social Security payments. But the money needed to reduce the $150 billion-plus deficit, not to mention retiring the trillion-dollar national debt, is going to have to come from somewhere. So the future may not only be growthless, but also call for actual retrenchment in federal R&D programs.
Wil Lepkowski and Janice Long
Computer virus boosts network security efforts The recent assault by a computer virus on the Internet system of defense and research computers has forced a re-evaluation of network vulnerabilities. It has also sparked debate on the tradeoffs involved in implementing better protection measures.
The latest virus did not destroy data and so was relatively benign. Nevertheless, the incident raised considerable anxiety in the user community and forced systems personnel to waste valuable time restarting the shut-down network, checking files for damage, and closing software "holes."
A computer virus is a program that enters a computer system, reproduces itself, and initiates unauthorized operations, ranging from display of on-screen messages to destruction of files. This virus was allegedly sent out on Nov. 2 from Cornell University by computer science graduate student Robert T.
Morris Jr. Cornell is a backbone site on NSFnet, a part of Internet that connects over 200 research facilities.
From Cornell, the virus spread across Internet, infecting VAX and Sun computers that use specific versions of the Unix operating system. An alert message sent out on the network's electronic mail system on Nov. 2 read: "We are currently under attack from an Internet virus— •Removing [files it creates] is not enough as they will come back in the next wave of attacks."
According to Charles Catlett, manager of networking at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in Champaign, 111., "The virus used three security holes in Unix that were well known, but that nobody thought anybody would try to use." Many computing centers have since reconfigured Unix to address these security gaps.
The Chemistry Division of the National Science Foundation says that major chemical research facilities do not appear to have been seriously affected by the virus. Chemical Abstracts Service in Columbus, Ohio, a division of the American Chemical Society that is tied into a number of networks, was also spared. "We were concerned about a possible spread through Bitnet, but that did not happen," says CAS director Ronald L. Wigington. "Even if it had, we would not have been affected because of security steps we had taken."
Wigington adds that "this particular incident was in one way fortunate, in that it was profound enough to get widespread attention but did not do serious damage. Some organizations have not taken the computer security issue fully seriously. There are many reasons why they haven't—mostly not understanding that it's important that they do."
Measures are available to implement higher degrees of security, but they can be costly and tend to restrict system access, making it less convenient for users.
But some feel there will be little choice in the matter. "You can't afford to have nets brought down to their knees," says Charles F. Bender, director of the Ohio Supercomputer Center and director of research computing at Ohio State
University. "We'll have to harden security. But this means it will be more difficult to access the computers. Ultimately, the users will bear the brunt of the problem."
St u Borman
Du Pont bites into high-tech snack venture When Kraft last year pulled away from a marketing arrangement with DNA Plant Technology for the biotechnology company's VegiSnax brand of packaged vegetable snacks (C&EN, July 6,1987, page 16), many analysts practically wrote off the Cinnaminson, N.J.-based company.
But last week, Du Pont came along with a bid to rescue VegiSnax and perhaps DNAP in the process. DNAP, which has a merger pending with Advanced Genetic Sciences of Oakland, Calif., had hoped to commercialize the snack food to raise cash to fund its other biotechnology efforts. VegiSnax are carrots and celery engineered through tissue culture and breeding techniques for crispness and long shelf life.
The agreement between Du Pont and DNAP calls for a joint venture to commercialize high-value-added fresh fruits and vegetables and introduce new generations of products over the long term. Du Pont also will become an equal partner with DNAP in commercializing VegiSnax. Once commercialized, all VegiSnax activities, including patents and technology, will be transferred to the joint venture company. The agreement is contingent upon the completion of the pending merger of DNAP and Advanced Genetic Sciences and the negotiation of a definitive agreement between DNAP and Du Pont.
In addition, Du Pont will acquire 1.5 million shares of DNAP at $4.50 per share. This will give Du Pont a 10% stake in the venture resulting from combination of DNAP and Advanced Genetic Sciences. Also, Du Pont will contribute initial funding of about $7.5 million to complete the R&D work needed to launch the joint venture and to commercialize VegiSnax.
William Storck
8 November 14, 1988 C&EN
