Index

During the last three months, active interest in solving the year 2000 problems has accelerated at the national level. The Centre, as the Secretariat of the Higher Commission for the Y2K, appointed a national technical committee of expertise from different public departments to study the situation in the public sector and offer recommendations. Initiative activities included:

0. Offices to accommodate the staff were selected in the National Information Centre premises.
1. A national awareness campaign to explain the problem and its dimensions is being raised.
2. A solution strategy has been adopted.
3. A list of equipment that could be susceptible to the 2000 problem has been constructed and distributed to organizations in the public and the private sectors.
4. A CD containing relevant information is being published to be distributed among organizations.
5. A self-examining questionnaire was distributed to help organizations define and measure the extent of the problem.
6. Guidelines for contingency plans have been distributed.
7. Guidelines for monitoring and reviewing progress in solving the problem before the end of 1999.
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Issues List

New Subscription Rates

Released by the National Information Centre for Internet Connection

Bandwidth	Hours/month	Cost in JD	Connection Mode
33.6kbs	10/month	10	Dial-up
33.6kbs	30/month	25
33.6kbs	65/month	50
33.6kbs	/month500	300
33.6kbs	unlimited	600
33.6kbs	unlimited	2950	Leased Line
64kbs	unlimited	5900
128kbs	unlimited	11000
256kbs	unlimited	22000

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Activities of the National Task Force for the Y2K

The National Task Force that has been appointed to abate the 2000 bug, consists of experts in computer from different national organizations in the public sector. Its main task is to monitor progress in the abatement of the 2000 problems mainly in the public sector and strategic private sector organizations. So far, the Task Force has accomplished the following tasks:

8. Appointed a laison officer between the Task Force and the different organizations to facilitate communication.
9. Stocktaking of electronic embedded systems used in the organizations.
10. Identified the non-compliant equipment.
11. Contacted mother companies to help in solving the problem and in estimating the cost of maintenance.
12. Drew a contingency plan.

Regional Meeting on the 2000 Bug, Beirut

The National Information Centre participated in the Regional Meeting for the national coordinators of the Y2K. The meeting was held by ESCWA from 25-26 February, 1999.The President of the Centre, represented Jordan in addition to other representatives from the ESCWA countries. National plans to address this problem including contingency plans were reviewed. Participants stressed the fact that coordination and cooperation and exchange of expertise is of utmost importance for success. Recommendations included communication and energy systems on a regional level.

The 4^th International Internet Conference, Cairo

The Centre participated in the 4^th Internet Conference in Cairo from 8-10/2/1999.The Conference was organized by the Egyptian Internet Society in cooperation with the Decision Support Centre of the Egyptian Prime Ministry.

RAITNET Distant Learning Workshop, Cairo

Raitnet, the Regional Arab Information Technology Network conducted a workshop in Cairo from 10-11/2/1999 to review the regional project of the Arab Communication Network and Distant Learning. Seven Arab Countries participated and the National Information Centre and the University of Jordan represented Jordan. Jordan was selected by the Regional Centre for Computer Engineering to participate in the activities of the first phase of this project which is funded by the World Bank.

Declaration of Cooperation and Support of Asian Y2K Coordinators, Manila

The Centre, among other 17 coordinators for the year 2000, participated in the meeting for the Asian-Pacific region in Manila to discuss national Y2K readiness and to plan cooperation in information sharing, transborder Y2K issues and continuity planning and response. The World Bank supported the meeting. The representative signed a declaration to cooperate and share information within the next 12 months.

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Strategy for Environmental Information

The National Information Center (NIC) and in collaboration with the UNDP have worked together to produce an Environment Information Strategy (EIS) for sustainable development. The main objective is to regulate and manage environmental information in Jordan.

A field study was conducted to investigate the situation of information in the environment sector in Jordan and to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the present situation.

The proposed Environmental Information Strategy has taken into account the missions and interrelations of the involved institutions, the nature of their activities, the type of information they produce, their IT infrastructure the role of government in regulating their work, cultural and human factors that need to be changed through intensive training in quality information service and the importance of regional and international exchange of information in satisfying information needs and

synergism. The proposed strategy recommends that the General Corporation of Environment Protection(GCEP) reinforce its ultimate leadership role in protecting the environment. The cause-effect and synergism of information access, stakeholder awareness, and improved environmental conditions cannot be overlooked. Increased environmental information exchange among stakeholders both locally and regionally stimulates greater awareness about the environment and what can be done to protect it.

The final analysis of the study showed that present environmental information services have good features that invite development as well as weak points that need abatement. One important feature is the Environment Information Coordinating Committee established by the National Information Centre. Its main concern is in environment information coordination and management of environmental information at the national level.

Another important finding was the existence of information barriers or constraints to the use of information and accessibility. It is believed that there are cultural attitudes that obstruct, in some cases, accessibility to information.

The government is a major player in enforcing laws and regulation for the sustainable

development of the information sector and in facilitating the accessibility of information for better utilization of environmental information allocations.

The strategy recommends the restructuring of the institutional setup to ensure a better flow and access to environment information. An Environment Information Centre (ENVIC) will be responsible for the coordination in the provision of environmental information at the input and output levels. The overlapping missions that cause redundancy in objectives of different institutions will be ironed out by the ENVIC. Environment information providers will be allowed to work on distinctive but coherent tasks and roles. ENVIC will be hosted by the General Corporation for Environment Protection (GCEP).

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Barriers to information

The study of the strategy for environmental information revealed that there are barriers to information accessibility. Some of the barriers are physical. Others are cultural and they include the following:

13. Physical inaccessibility to material, either because of unavailability or because difficulty in finding the required information because of traditional storage techniques.
14. Administrative bureaucracy. The person at the head of the organization structure is the only person who can give permission for information access by users.
15. Inaccuracy of data. Data is not always accurate because of laxity in updating and because of variation of information from different sources.
16. Lack of professional personnel
17. Disinterest in updating due to lack of training. Training on the is restricted for cultural and economic reasons. This reflects badly on the importance of updating information.
18. Absence of sound documentation procedures. Librarians and documentalists are not always trained to do the job. This, of course, creates discrepancy with international standards and affects information accessibility and exchange.
19. Random updating of the needed information
20. Needless duplication of documents that are already stored and processed by sister organizations.
21. Reluctance in providing information for users because of lack and training which makes handling requests for information quite difficult.

Hosted by the Internet Society

http://www.isoc.org/inet99/

<http://www.isoc.org>

The Internet Society is a non-profit, non-governmental, open membership organization whose worldwide individual and organization members make up a veritable "who's who" of the Internet industry. It provides leadership in technical and operational standards, policy issues and education. ISOC hosts two annual Internet conferences <http://www.isoc.org/isoc/conferences>, trains people from over 100 countries in networking technologies, conducts workshops for educators, and publishes an award winning bi-monthly magazine, titled On The Internet.

Dr. Postel was the director of the Computer Networks division at the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) of the University of Southern California, and director of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, until he passed away Friday, October 16th, in Los Angeles.

Dr. Postel served on the Internet Society Board of Trustees. He was awarded the International Telecommunication Union's silver medal in 1998 for his central role in the success story of the Internet. He worked in the areas of computer communication protocols, especially at the operating system level and the application level. His other interests included multi-machine internetwork applications, multimedia conferencing and electronic mail, very large networks, and very high-speed communications.

He was also involved in several Internet infrastructure activities including the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), the RFC Editor, the US Domain, and the Los Nettos network (a regional network for the greater Los Angeles area).

One of Dr. Postel's many accomplishments was to establish the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) which acted as the Internet's central coordination, allocation, and registration body for addresses, names, and protocol parameters since the early days of the Internet. As the controversies over Internet management unfolded, he chose to expose himself to those pressures, rather than risk disrupting the ability of the IANA staff and supporting groups to do the work that was, and remains, critical to the stability of the network. He suggested the privatization of IANA and the establishment of ICANN.

http://www.hitchhikers.net/html/

This is a very useful web directory of antivirus links. The site has links to alerts and security, antivirus attacks, disinfection and recovery methods, books , news, virus lists and description and a virus reporting centre.