NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/comp/risks/149

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RISKS-LIST: RISKS-FORUM Digest  Weds 27 January 1993  Volume 14 : Issue 29

        FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS
   ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator

  Contents:
Synthesis report on DoD software problems (James H. Paul)
EM Radiation - is smoking safer? (Paul Menon)
Brazilian Banking Reserve Data Disappear (Sanford Sherizen)
Clinton Transition Team E-Mail (David Daniels)
Computer promises nothing (Conrad Bullock)
The FBI and Lotus cc:Mail (Dick Joltes)
A stopped clock never foils? (Paul Eggert)
Re: Racetrack goes to the dogs as computer fails (Conrad Bullock)
Request to Post Office on Selling of Personal Information (Dave Banisar)
TAPSOFT '93, APRIL 13-16, 1993,  ORSAY, FRANCE (Cliff B Jones)

 The RISKS Forum is a moderated digest discussing risks; comp.risks is its
 undigested Usenet counterpart.  Contributions should be relevant, sound, in
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 (or send FAX to RISKS at 310-455-2364, or EMail to [e-mail]).

 ALL CONTRIBUTIONS CONSIDERED AS PERSONAL COMMENTS; USUAL DISCLAIMERS APPLY.
 Relevant contributions may appear in the RISKS section of regular issues
 of ACM SIGSOFT's SOFTWARE ENGINEERING NOTES, unless you state otherwise.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:    Mon, 25 Jan 1993 10:50:35 -0500 (EST)
From: [e-mail] (James H. Paul)
Subject: Synthesis report on DoD software problems

The General Accounting Office (GAO) has issued a report summarizing the
findings from its recent studies of software problems in major weapons.  The
report is entitled "MISSION CRITICAL SYSTEMS: Defense Attempting to Address
Major Software Challenges."  Copies may be obtained by calling GAO's
distribution center at 301-275-6241 and requesting IMTEC-93-13, dated December
24, 1992 (a nice Christmas present for Congressman Dellums, who is now
ascending to chair the Committee on Armed Services of the House of
Representatives.)

Some may be interested to know that GAO has virtually decided to abolish its
Information Management and Technology Division.  Future investigations of
information system failures will be carried out by the program divisions.
I've indicated to our congressional affairs representative at GAO that I don't
think much of this, particularly with the Government's well-known difficulties
in designing, procuring, managing and maintaining large-scale systems.  Sorry
to say my views didn't appear to derail the express train.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 14:23:49 +1000
From: [e-mail] (Paul Big-Ears Menon)
Subject: EM Radiation - is smoking safer?

A snippet in today's Melbourne daily - "The Age" (21 Jan '93):

"Television sets were once accused of killing flies and video games are
still suspected of prompting epileptic fits.  But blowing up a petrol
station?  That, it seems, is the province of the mobile phone.

As a warning Shell has issued in the UK makes clear, mobile phones can
do more than propel private conversations on to front pages
[sorry Chuck].  According to British Shell, service station customers who
use mobile phones while filling their cars could ignite petrol vapo[u]r
through sparks emitted by the phones' electromagnetic radiation.

And that is not all.  A man in Florida is suing a mobile phone maker claiming
the antenna on one of its phones caused excessive exposure to the microwave
radiation it emits.  This, he claims, contributed to a brain cancer that
killed his wife.  ..."

Is it safer to smoke at a petrol station?

We've had walkie talkies (ok - two way radios) for years with no
perceivable or admitted risk to the health of users.  I presume mobile
phones have less power output than their predecessors, as area
transponders/repeaters/xceivers  are likely to be more sensitive than
2-ways, and are located to obviate high output end-user devices.

Nevertheless, I was reminded of EMR's existence just recently.  I've purchased
a Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) to monitor the quality & consistency of my runs.
It's a two piece type: one is a band around the chest, which transmits to a
digital receiver on the wrist.  Now, apart from my curiosity about how this
works (ie, what is transmitted & how) not getting me anywhere (this is a
consumer device), I was intrigued with its performance in the field.

My running route takes me under some high tension lines.  Guess what?  The HRM
goes bonkers!  At first I thought it was just the transmitter not fitted
properly, but I eliminated this as the result here is totally different.  It
took a few more runs under these lines to recognise the cause.  I don't think
I could survive a heart rate of 228-230 beats/minute!  On checking the manual,
it warns of strange behaviour (the device, not the user) under HT lines.

With the plethora of EMR everywhere, I wonder if strange behaviour in
_humans_ is the only outlook for the future...

Paul Menon, Computer Science, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, 124
La Trobe Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia  +61 3 660 - 3209/2348

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 19:56 GMT
From: Sanford Sherizen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Brazilian Banking Reserve Data Disappear: The Post-Hacker Era

A Reuters report found in the NY Times (21 Jan 1993) states that computer
disks holding secret information on Brazil's banking reserves have disappeared
from the central bank.  The federal police are investigating the loss.
According to the report, President Itamar Franco "took the unusual step" of
releasing information on the reserves to offset any damage or financial
speculation from loss of the disks.  The disks held information on day-to-day
reserve operations and details like where the reserves are invested, what they
consisted of and how the reserves were generated.

COMMENTS: This disappearance may be related to ex-President Collar's
involvement in the looting of Brazil.  At a minimum, the data disappearance
seems to be another indication of the Post-Hacker Era, where governments and
companies have learned that computers can be used as an essential aspect of
crime and/or to cover up a crime.  The lines between "hacker" activities and
"legitimate" activities may become increasingly less clear.  In order to
commit a white collar or economic crime, individuals or organizations will
almost have to use computer techniques.  While there continues to be an (often
unconscious) image that many have that computer crime is "bad individuals"
against "good" organizations, the Organization as Computer Criminal is rapidly
becoming a serious problem.  One but certainly not the only instance of this
is the recent British Airways's penetration of Virgin Air's reservations
system.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 05:32 GMT
From: David Daniels <[e-mail]>
Subject: Clinton Transition Team E-Mail

It is only fitting that this happened on the eve of tomorrow's presidential
inauguration: I sent a message today to the Clinton Transition Team and got
the following response.  Does this mean that they are not keeping up with
their e-mail?  So much for electronic democracy!!!  :-}

TO:     * David Daniels / MCI ID: 438-1897
Subject:  Non-delivery notification

Message [...] sent Tue, Jan 19, 1993 07:16 PM EST, could not be delivered to:

To:  Clinton Transition Team
     EMS: CompuServe
     MBX: [75300,3115]

for the following reasons:

    Mail Delivery Failure. No room in mailbox.

----- Returned message -----

         [Too many people looking for jobs?  PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 21:58:56 NZT
From: Conrad Bullock <[e-mail]>
Subject: Computer promises nothing

The Evening Post, Wellington, New Zealand, 27th January, 1993 (Excerpted)

ACC Promises Nothing

  A computer glitch two weeks ago means some accident compensation clients
have been sent multiple identical letters promising them cheques for $0.00.
Teacher Angela Watt received three envelopes yesterday from the Accident
Rehabilitation and Compensation Insurance Corporation relating to her son
Andrew, who sprained his ankle while picking apricots.  The first letter gave
Andrew's medical fee number and requested that he keep it in a safe place. The
second did the same thing but added mysteriously that "although you have
claimed $0.00, legislative regulations provide maximum limits of payment of
$0.00. Payment of this amount will be forwarded."  Confused and craving
enlightenment, Mrs Watt opened the third letter. She found a cheque for $29 -
a refund for Andrew's doctor's fee.
  Palmerston North branch manager Jo Burney said the corporation reprogrammed
its Wellington computer on January 12 to stop it sending out individual
letters for every part of a client's claim.  "Under the old system, you would
get separate letters and cheques for each part of a claim - the doctor's fee,
the prescription charge and the physiotherapy," she said.
  The new computer programme was supposed to save all the claims, add them up
and send out one letter and one cheque.  "Something happened ... there was one
letter all right but it was sent out three times in some cases."

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 17:58:49 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: The FBI and Lotus cc:Mail

An interesting tidbit came to light while I was attending a demonstration of
Lotus' cc:Mail and Notes products at the Boston NetWorld this month.  During
the Notes portion of the presentation someone asked how secure the information
in the various databases was, and how the encryption was done.

The presenter said that the data was considered very secure, so much so that
the FBI had approached Lotus to ask that a "back door" be left in the software
in order to give the Bureau a method for infiltrating suspects' filesystems.
She said they were specifically targeting "drug dealers and other bad people."

Given this backdoor, what was to stop the Bureau from inspecting confidential
materials on any system?  The risks seem obvious.  Additionally, it makes one
wonder how many other vendors of supposedly "secure" software have been
similarly approached by various Federal organizations, and how many have
agreed to create the back doors as requested.

Happily, the presenter said that Lotus refused to honor the FBI's request.
Bravo!

Dick Joltes, Manager, Networks and Hardware, Harvard University Science Center
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 21:31:33 PST
From: [e-mail] (Paul Eggert)
Cc: [e-mail] (Jean-Bernard Condat)
Subject: A stopped clock never foils?

One way to discourage intruders from using covert channels to foil security is
to turn off the system clock, or at least to hide it from users.  But this
breaks a lot of software, so it's too drastic for all but the most
security-conscious sites.  So I was surprised to see J.-B. Condat's letter in
RISKS 14.28, which began:

  Date: 31 Dec 69 23:59:59 GMT
  From: [e-mail]
  Subject: New E-journal on computer security
  ...

Unix cognoscenti will recognize that date: it corresponds to the internal Unix
time value of -1, which is returned by system functions when the clock is not
available.  I guess Condat and the Chaos Computer Club France must really be
practicing what they preach!

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 23:59:12 +1200
From: Conrad Bullock <[e-mail]>
Subject: Racetrack goes to the dogs as computer fails (RISKS-14.28)

> > At the tail end of the sports news at the end of NewsHour, the morning BBC
> > show heard on WBUR, was the mention of an error in a betting computer at a
> > greyhound race track.  The computer continued to accept bets well after the
> > conclusion of the race.  Needless to say, many gleeful track-betters bought
> > tickets for the dog that had already won, and claimed their winnings.

This happened in New Zealand, with the computer system run by the NZ TAB
(Totalisator Agency Board), on the 7th of January, at the Waikato aGreyhound
Club meeting.

The problem started when the track to computer site communication links proved
unreliable - basically a noisy data line, with lots of dropouts.  Switching to
a backup dialup line did not help. When they switched to a backup modem, it
blew a fuse. They then tried to switch to a cellular modem backup, they failed
to establish a connection (I am unsure on the engineering details here).
(Apparently all these backup services had worked OK on the previous day). The
upshot was that operation continued on the noisy line, with reduced
throughput.

Because of these communication difficulties, after consultation with the
Auckland computer site, the track tote manager decided to delay all races by
30 minutes. Unfortunately, the human-human communications link failed here, as
both the track operators, and the Auckland site operators delayed the races by
the required 30 minutes, thus resulting in the computer believing races had
been delayed by 60 minutes.

When the race was started, the track operators performed a standard `Race
close' function, to shut off betting. (NZ TAB operates `betting to the jump').
However, because in the computers' eyes, the race was being closed 30 minutes
early, the control function being used asked for the `Override for Early
close' field to be set to `Y'.

The operator, apparently used to closing races at approximately the right
time, or after the scheduled time, had never seen this diagnostic before,
and/or had `sent' the control function, and walked away before seeing the
diagnostic.

This problem was not noticed/solved for about 3 minutes, and since a greyhound
race is over in about 20 seconds, this allowed time for a number of bets to be
placed after the result was known. The bets were placed all around the country
- not just at the track.

[Exactly what happened in this 3 minute period has not been sorted out - there
was a flurry of human-human communication between the track, the Auckland
computer site, and the master computer site, once it was realised that betting
was still being taken.  Procedures were not correctly followed. Part of the
problem is that this has never happened before in the 12 years of operation
this system has had. Too reliable?]

Once the `double deferment' problem was noticed, the track tried to move the
race start times forward by half an hour. However, the software would not
allow them to move subsequent race start times to a time which was prior to
the scheduled start time of a race which has already been run. This was not a
major problem, since the early race close could be used OK.  [Perhaps a case
of error-checking being a little too stringent?]

I would hesitate to blame the problems on `computer failure'. Perhaps
`communications failure' - between the computer and the operators (For having
a slightly different interaction in this instance), and human-human (the
double deferment, and the site/track communications when the problem was
noticed). The only hardware failure was a dodgy comms link. Software failure?
Not really. Computer system failure? I guess so, you've got to count the
operations side of things.

> > The article also mentioned that some people are just born losers.
> > After the race had finished, 139 people bet on dogs that had *lost*!

This is explained by the popularity of a product called `Easybet'.  This is a
bet in which the computer selects three runners for a race (runners are
selected randomly, weighted by favouritism), and the ticket wins if the three
selected runners come in 1st, 2nd and 3rd (a boxed trifecta). The default race
for an `Easybet' is the next race to close. Since the race hadn't been
`closed', many `Easybets' were sold on the race which had already been run.
Many of the losing tickets sold after the race had been run were actually
`Easybets' which didn't win.

> > The government management reported that they intended to reclaim all of the
> > unfairly-won monies.  However, they stated that they intend to *keep* the
> > money from the losers.

The `loss' was approximately NZ$7000, mostly from trifecta bets (selecting
1st, 2nd and 3rd in the right order), with a payout of over $200 per $1
invested. NZ$5000 of this was placed at a single agency.  The agent has been
arrested and charged, after allegedly encouraging customers to bet after the
result was known, and allegedly placing bets him/herself (illegal).

Since the TAB in New Zealand operates on a pari-mutuel system, where the prize
pool is a percentage of the money placed on a particular bet type for that
race, the late bets increased the number of winning units, thus `diluting' the
dividend paid on winning bets. The TAB is making up the dividend to the
correct amount, for bets placed before the race was run.

  [Also commented upon by Martin D. Hunt <[e-mail]>.]

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 14:47:48 EST
From: Dave Banisar <[e-mail]>
Subject: Request to Post Office on Selling of Personal Information

   In May 1992, the US Postal Service testified before the US House of
Representatives' Government Operations Subcommittee that National Change of
Address (NCOA) information filled out by each postal patron who moves and
files that move with the Post Office to have their mail forwarded is sold to
direct marketing firms without the person's consent and without informing them
of the disclosure. These records are then used to target people who have
recently moved and by private detective agencies to trace people, among other
uses. There is no way, except by not filling out the NCOA form, to prevent
this disclosure.

   This letter is to request information on why your personal information was
disclosed and what uses are being made of it. Patrons who send in this letter
are encouraged to also forward it and any replies to their Congressional
Representative and Senators.

Eligible requestors: Anyone who has filed a change of address notice with
the Postal Service within the last five years.

Records Officer
US Postal Service
Washington, DC 20260                        PRIVACY ACT REQUEST

Dear Sir/Madam:

    This is a request under the Privacy Act of 1974 (5 USC 552a). The Act
requires the Postal Service, as a government agency, to maintain an accounting
of the date, nature, and purpose of each disclosure of information about
individuals. I request a copy of the accounting of all disclosures made of
address change and mail forwarding information that I provided to the Postal
Service. This information is maintained in USPS System of Records 010.010.

    On or about (date), I filed a change of address notice requesting that
my mail be forwarded from (old address) to (new address). The name that I used
on the change of address form was (name).

    This request includes the accounting of all disclosures made by the
Postal Service, its contractors, and its licensees.

    I am making this request because I object to the Postal Service's
policy of disclosing this information without giving individuals an option to
prevent release of this information. I want to learn how my information has
been disclosed and what uses have been made of it. Please let the Postmaster
General know that postal patrons want to have a choice in how change of
address information is used.

    If there is a fee in excess of $5 for this information, please notify
me in advance. Thank you for consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

CC: Your Congressional Representative
    US House of Representatives
    Washington, DC 20510

    Your Senators
    US Senate
    Washington, DC 20515

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 12:24:12 GMT
From: Cliff B Jones <[e-mail]>
Subject: TAPSOFT '93, APRIL 13-16, 1993,  ORSAY, FRANCE

                PROGRAM [and REGISTRATION FORM info]

  [NO REGISTRATIONS BY EMAIL.  REGISTRATION FORM FROM CLIFF OR FTP
  FROM RISKS CRVAX.SRI.COM archive directory (CD RISKS:) as "TAPSOFT.93".]

TAPSOFT'93 is the fourth International Joint Conference on the Theory and
Practice of Software Development. Its predecessors where held in Berlin,
Pisa, Barcelona and Brighton. This year TAPSOFT will take place at Orsay,
the beautiful campus of the University "Paris-Sud".

Continuing with the tradition of high scientific quality of these meetings,
TAPSOFT'93 will consist of three parts:

I. The COLLOQUIUM ON TREES IN ALGEBRAS AND PROGRAMMING (CAAP)
Program Committee: A. Arnold, N. Dershowitz, H. Ganzinger, J. Goguen,
J.-P. Jouannaud (Chair), J.-W. Klop, D. Kozen, U. Montanari, M. Nivat,
L. Pacholski, B. Rovan, W. Thomas

II. The COLLOQUIUM ON FORMAL APPROACHES OF SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (FASE)
Program Committee: E. Astesiano, M. Dincbas, H. Erhig, M.-C. Gaudel
(General Chair), S. Gerhart, D. Jacobs, C. Jones, T. Maibaum, F. Orejas,
J. Sifakis, A. Tarlecki

III. The ADVANCED SEMINAR with
INVITED SURVEYS by H.-D. Ehrich, J. Guttag, C. Jones, B. Mahr, W. Thomas
INVITED CONFERENCES by A. Arnold, P-P. Degano, N. Dershowitz, G. Longo

CONFERENCE LOCATION: Building 338 (Batiment des Colloques), Faculte des
Sciences, Universite de Paris-Sud, Orsay, France
ACCESS: from Paris, 40 min. by RER line B, Orsay-ville station

                   PROGRAMME OF THE CONFERENCE
                   Tuesday 13

                   9:00 Registration and Coffee
*9:45   Opening session
*10:00  Invited Survey : "Are Formal Methods Useful "J. V. Guttag, MIT (USA),
        chaired by M.-C. Gaudel

*12:00 Invited Conference: "On the Expressive Power of Models of Concurrency",
        P.-P. Degano, Univ. di Pisa (I) chaired by A. Arnold

***14:30 CAAP Session 1 : Specifications and Proofs, chair : J. Goguen
- 14:30 Compositionality Results for Different Types of Parameterization and
        Parameter Passing in Specification Languages, H. Ehrig, T. U. Berlin
        (D), R. M. Jimenez & F. Orejas, Univ. Pol. de Catalunya (S)
- 15:00 Proving Ground Confluence and Inductive Validity in Constructor Based
        Equational Specifications, K. Becker, Univ. Kaiserlautern (D)
- 15:30 Associative-Commutative Discrimination Nets, L. Bachmair, T. Chen,
        I.V. Ramakrishnan, SUNY, Stony Brook (USA)

***14:30 FASE Session 1 : Case Studies in Formal Design and Development,
        chair : J. V. Guttag
- 14:30 Algebraic Specification and Development in Geometric Modeling,
        Y. Bertrand, J.-F. Dufourd, J. Francon, P. Lienhart, Univ. Louis
        Pasteur & CNRS, Strasbourg (F)
- 15:00 A Case Study in Transformational Design of Concurrent Systems, E. R.
        Olderog & S. Rssig, Univ. Oldenburg (D)
- 15:30 Yeast : a Case Study for a Practical Use of Formal Methods, P.
        Inverardi, IEI-CNR Pisa (I), B. Krishnamurthy, AT&T Bell Lab, Murray
        Hill (USA), D. Yankelevich, Univ. Pisa (I)
                     16:00 Coffee Break
*16:30 Invited Conference:  "Vertical Verification of Concurrent Systems",
        A. Arnold, Labri-CNRS, Univ. Bordeaux (F) chaired by C. B. Jones
                     17:45  University Reception

                     Wednesday 14

*9:30 Invited Survey:  "Using Object-based Concepts to Control Concurrency",
       C. B. Jones, Univ. of Manchester (UK) chaired by H.-D. Ehrich
                   11:00 Coffee Break
***11:30 CAAP, Session 2: Concurrency, chair : U. Montanari
- 11:30 From pi-calculus to higher-order pi-calculus - and back, D. Sangiorgi,
        Univ. Edinburgh (UK)
- 12:00 Hyperedge Replacement with Rendez-vous, G. David, F. Drewes & H.-J.
        Kreowski, Univ. Bremen (D)
- 12:30 True Concurrency Semantics for a Linear Logic Programming Language
        with Broadcast Communication, J.-M. Andreoli, L. Leth, R. Pareschi &
        B. Thomsen, ECRC, Munich (D)

***11:30 FASE, Session 2: Compositionality, Modules and Development, chair :
        A. Tarlecki,
- 11:30 A General Framework for Modular Implementations of Modular System
        Specifications, M. Bidoit, LIENS-CNRS (F), R. Hennicker,
        Ludwig-Maximilians Univ., Mnchen (D)
- 12:00 Reducing the Runtime Costs for Modularity, M.T. Vandevoorde, MIT (USA)
- 12:30 Application of the Composition Principle to UNITY-like Specifications,
        P. Collette, Univ. Catholique de Louvain (B)
                    13:15 Lunch
*14:30  Invited Conference: ""Trees, Ordinals and Termination", N. Dershowitz,
        Hebrew Univ., Jerusalem (IL), chaired by F. Orejas
                    15:30 Coffee Break
***16:00 CAAP Session 3: Automata and Counting, chair : B. Rovan
- 16:00 When is a Functional Tree Transduction Deterministic, H. Seidl, Univ.
        des Saarlandes (D)
- 16:30 Automata on Infinite Trees with Counting Constraints, D. Beauquier,
        LITP, Paris (F), D. Niwinski, Univ. Warsaw (POL)
- 17:00 Directed Column-Convex Polyominoes by Recurrence Relations, E.
        Barcucci, R. Pinzani & R. Sprugnoli, Univ. di Firenze (I)

***16:00 FASE Session 3: Formal Development, chair : B. Krieg-Bruckner
- 16:00 Object Organisation in Software Environments for Formal Methods, J.
        Han, Univ. of Queensland (AUS)
- 16:30 Monads, Indexes and Transformations, F. Bellegarde, Western Washington
        Univ. (USA), and J. Hook, Oregon Graduate Institute, Beaverton (USA)
- 17:00 A Technique for Specifying and Refining TCSP processes by using Guards
        and Liveness Conditions, R. Pea, Univ. Computense de Madrid (S), L.
        M. Alonso, Univ. del Pais Vasco (S)

                              Thursday 15

*9:30  Invited Survey: "Applications of Type Theory", B. Mahr, T. U. Berlin (D)
       chaired by G. Longo
                    11:00 Coffee Break
***11:30 CAAP Session 4: Constraints Solving and Enumerations,
       chair : L. Pacholski
-11:30 Feature Automata and Recognizable Sets of Feature Trees, J. Niehren,
       DFKI, Saarbrcken (D), A. Podelski, DEC-PRL, Rueil-Malmaison (F)
-12:00 About the Theory of Tree Embedding, A. Boudet & H. Comon, LRI-CNRS,
       Univ. Paris-Sud (F)
-12:30 Linear Unification of Higher-Order Patterns, Z. Qian, Univ. Bremen (D)

***11:30 FASE Session 4 : Foundations and Analysis of Formal Specifications,
       chair : E. Astesiano
-11:30 Theory Revision for Requirements Capture, W. Li, Beijing Univ. (China)
-12:00 Exception Handling and Tern Labelling, G. Bernot, LIVE Evry (F), P.
       Le Gall, LRI-CNRS Orsay (F)
- 12:30 Gate Splitting in LOTOS Specifications using Abstract Interpretation,
       F. Giannotti & D. Latella, CNR, Pisa (I)
                    13:15 Lunch
*14:30  Invited Survey: "Constructing Systems as Objects Communities", H.-D.
       Ehrich,  T.U. Braunschweig (D), chaired by H. Ganzinger
                   16:00 Coffee Break
***16:30 CAAP Session 5: Rewriting, chair : J.-W. Klop
-16:30 Term Rewriting in CT 7, A. Corradini, Univ. di Pisa (I)
-17:00 Optimal Reductions in Interaction Systems, A. Asperti & C. Laneve,
       INRIA-Rocquencourt (F)
-17:30 Optimal Solutions to Pattern Matching Problems, L. Puel, LRI-CNRS,
       Univ. Paris-Sud (F), A. Suarez, LIENS-CNRS (F)

***16:30 FASE Session 5 : Verification of Concurrent Systems, ch. T. Maibaum
-16:30 Testing for a Conformance Relation based on Acceptance, M.Y. Yao,
       G.V. Bochmann, Univ. of Montreal (CDN)
-17:00 Testability of a system though an Environment, K. Drira & P. Azema,
       LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse (F), B. Soulas & A.-M. Chemali, EDF-DER, Moret sur
       Loing (F)
-17:30 Automating (Specification = Implementation) using Equational Reasoning
       and LOTOS, C. Kirkwood, Univ. of Glasgow (UK)
                   20:00 Banquet

                       Friday 16

*9:30  Invited Survey: "The Erhenfeucht Fraisse Game in Theoretical Computer
       Science", W.  Thomas, Univ. Kiel (D), chaired by M. Nivat
                    11:00 Coffee Break
***11:30 CAAP Session 6: Logic and Trees, chair : W. Thomas
-11:30 On Asymptotic Probabilities in Logics that captures DSPACE(log n) in
       Presence of Ordering, J. Tyszkiewicz, Univ. Warsaw (POL)
-12:00 A Propositional Dense Time Logic based on nested sequences, M. Ahmed &
       G. Venkatesh, Indian Inst. of Tech., Bombay (IND)
- 12:30 La vraie Forme d'un Arbre, J. Betrema & A. Zvonkin, Labri-CNRS, Univ.
       Bordeaux (F)

***11:30 FASE, Session 6  : Model Checking, chair : J. Sifakis
-11:30  Model Checking using Net Unfolding, J. Esparza, Univ. Hildesheim (D)
-12:00  Reachability Analysis on Distributed Executions, C.Diehl, C. Jard &
        J.-X. Rampon, IRISA (F)
-12:30  Program Verification and Abstraction, S. Graf & C. Loiseaux, IMAG (F)
                    13:15 Lunch
*14:30  Invited Conference: "The Meaning of "parametricity" in Polymorphic
        Functional Languages", G. Longo, chaired by J.-P. Jouannaud
***15:30 CAAP-FASE Common Session: Type Inference, chair : J.-P. Jouannaud
-15:30  Polymorphic Type Inference with Overloading and Subtyping, G.S. Smith,
        Cornell Univ. (USA)
- 16:00 Type Reconstruction with Recursive Types and Atomic Subtyping, J.
        Tiuryn & M. Wand, Northeastern Univ., Boston (USA)

***17:00 CAAP Session 7: Analysis of Algorithms, chair : M. Soria
-17:00  (Un)expected Path Lengths of Asymmetric Binary Search Trees, U.
        Trier, Goethe Univ., Frankfurt (D)
-17:30  Tree Size in a Dynamic List Structure, G. Louchard, Univ. Libre
        Bruxelles (B)

***17:00 FASE Session 7:  Parallel Calculus, chair : H. Erhig
-17:00 A Fully Parallel Calculus of Synchronizing Processes, D. Latella &
       P. Quaglia, CNR, Pisa (I)
-17:30 Generic Systolic Arrays : A methodology for Systolic Design, E.P.
       Gribomont, Univ. de Liege (B), V. Van Dongen, CRI, Montreal (CDN)

       [And if you attend, please be sure to ask what this has to do with
       preventing RISKS.  Of course, IT SHOULD HAVE GREAT RELEVANCE.  PGN]

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End of RISKS-FORUM Digest 14.29
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