Posting bomb-making instructions on the Internet would be illegal in some cases under an amendment to a Senate bill passed one month after the high school massacre in Littleton, Colo., was linked to such online information.
The legislation, introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), would apply to books, videos and other media, but it is largely designed to curtail the wide availability of bomb formulas online.
Since the Littleton tragedy, Feinstein said, “there has been a steady stream of incidents of youths using the Internet to build bombs and threaten their use at school.”
The legislation would make it illegal to distribute bomb instructions if the distributor intends for the information to be used to commit a violent crime, or knows that the recipient intends to do so.
Skeptics note that proving such intent is difficult and say that even if the measure becomes law, most bomb-making data on the Net would still be protected speech under the 1st Amendment.
The measure’s prospects are dim. The Senate has passed similar legislation three times previously, only to see it killed in House-Senate conference committees.
— GREG MILLER
Yipinet Acquires Princeton Learning Systems
Yipinet, the Marina del Rey, Calif. start-up that provides professional continuing education courses over the Internet, has acquired rival Princeton Learning Systems of Princeton, N.J., for an undisclosed sum.
The purchase, which officials said won’t involve layoffs, will extend Yipinet’s offerings into the financial sector. Princeton already offers online courses in securities, banking and insurance to customers such as Prudential Insurance, PaineWebber’s Correspondent Services Corp., and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette’s Pershing Division.
Yipinet will relaunch those courses in the fall, Chief Executive Howard Marks said. The combined company will have about 30 corporate customers, 35,000 users and 50 employees, he said.
Year-old Yipinet offers courses for accountants via its Web site (http://www.yipinet.com) and on intranets. The company recently raised $12.5 million from private investors — in addition to $6 million raised earlier — to finance its expansion.
Marks said Yipinet is eyeing other deals that would allow it to offer courses in the health-care, information technology and real estate industries. — KAREN KAPLAN
The Night-and-Day Contrasts of Web Speed
During the day, cable modems can download Web pages faster than computers employing digital subscriber line technology. But at night — when personal Internet usage is at its peak — DSL beats cable modems for speed.
Those are the results of a monthlong test conducted by Keynote Systems, a San Mateo, Calif., company that measures Internet performance. Keynote timed more than 150,000 downloads from 40 popular Web sites in the San Francisco Bay Area using Pacific Bell’s DSL offering and (AT SIGN)Home’s cable system. Keynote found the median download time using a DSL connection was 3.55 seconds at night (5 to 11 p.m.) and 4.3 seconds during the day (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.) In contrast, the median download time using a cable modem was 3.97 seconds at night and 3.68 seconds during the day.
But both services were significantly slower than a T-1 connection, which can download a Web page in 2.36 seconds during the day and 1.83 seconds during peak usage hours, according to the Keynote tests. — KAREN KAPLAN
Fight Against Spam
In its first week on the Web, the Spam Recycling Center (http://www.spam-recycle.com) collected more than 11,000 pieces of unsolicited commercial e-mail that will be used to create better blocking filters to such mail. Some of the more questionable transmissions will also be forwarded to federal authorities, including the Federal Trade Commission.
The center was founded by activists seeking to reduce junk e-mail, including the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email; the Forum for Responsible Ethical Email; and ChooseYourMail.com, a Chicago company that runs an opt-in commercial e-mail program. — KAREN KAPLAN
(c) 1999, Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate
