[PEN-L:2678] BLS Daily Report

[Richardson_D <Richardson_D@xxxxxxx>]

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BLS DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 1999

Adding to a series of Internet-related calamities at BLS, the agency's Web
site fell prey to a hacking prank, says an article in the Wall Street
Journal (page A2).  A computer hacker defaced the bureau's introductory Web
page Friday afternoon, adding several juvenile messages, including the
boast, "You've been hacked."  Labor Department technicians discovered the
digital graffiti less than 15 minutes after they had been written and ripped
the page from the Web.  Carl Lowe, the department's associate commissioner
for technology, said no sensitive date were compromised.  "I would classify
this as minor hacking," he said, adding that some of the messages indicated
it was the work of  teenagers, according to the article.  The incident was
the third Internet mishap at the department in as many months.  In November,
BLS mistakenly posted portions of a monthly employment report a full day
ahead of schedule.  The leak moved financial markets and caused Labor
officials to rethink the department's procedures for releasing information
on the Web.  In a similar incident earlier this month, the BLS inadvertently
released the monthly Producer Price Index, another report that affected the
day's financial markets. ...  Increasingly, hackers use password programs
that generate frequently used passwords in a matter of minutes, helping them
to gain quick access to computer servers.  The Labor Department won't say
how the hacker entered the Web site.  Mr. Lowe, however, said technicians
"have removed the vulnerability."

Consumer confidence edged up in January, indicating continued economic
expansion in the coming months, the Conference Board reports.  The
organization's consumer confidence index advanced 1 percentage point to
127.6 percent of its 1985 base. ...  Nearly 46 percent say jobs are
plentiful, up from nearly 43 percent last month.  The proportion of
respondents who feel jobs are 'hard to get' declined from 14.6 percent to
13.3 percent. ...  (Daily Labor Report, page A-2)_____Americans are slightly
less confident about the outlook for the next six months than for the month
ahead. ...  (Washington Post, page E4)_____The rebound on Wall Street during
January helped restore consumer confidence in the economy, but Americans
still have concerns about their own finances in the months ahead.  The
number of people who said they expected their incomes to increase over the
next six months dropped 5.3 percentage points. ...  (New York Times, page
C8)_____Low unemployment and a steady stream of new jobs are keeping
consumer confidence at high levels. ...  (Wall Street Journal, page A2).

Led by booming information technology businesses, more than 80 percent of
manufacturing industries and all the major service sectors are expected to
grow through 1999, according to a trade and industry report by the Commerce
Department and McGraw-Hill. ...  The report, "U.S. Industry & Trade Outlook
'99," forecasts broad-based growth, with gains in the consumer goods,
machinery investment, construction, and high-tech sectors.  The outlook
predicts that economic growth will be between 2 and 2.5 percent in 1999,
lower and more sustainable than the 3 percent growth seen in 1998, the
report said. ...  "The big winners are clearly information technology
sectors which continue to plow on, regardless of what happens in the world,"
says the director of the Office of Trade and Economic Analysis in the
Commerce Department's International Trade Administration.  The information
technology sector is projected to grow 8 percent in 1999, according to the
report. ...  The report predicts that economic growth abroad will be
relatively weak in 1999.  The report cites chemicals and machinery as
examples of export-reliant industries that are expected to be dampened by
weak export markets. ...  (Daily Labor Report, page D-1).

The White House said the administration was considering plans to produce two
sets of official census data in 2001.   One would be based on a traditional
head count to be used for apportioning Congressional seats, and another
adjusted by sampling that states could use to draw lines for federal, state,
and local political districts.  The Supreme Court ruled that sampling, a
statistical technique, could not be used to adjust the 2000 census for the
purposes of apportioning seats in the House.  But the court left the door
open to using sampling for other purposes, including possibly redistricting
and allocating Federal money. ...  (New York Times, page A13; Washington
Post, page A2).

DUE OUT TOMORROW:  Employment Cost Index -- December 1998


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