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Editorials
Wednesday, February 9, 2000Extending runways on
Maui and KauaiHAWAII has one less dispute to argue about. The state has dropped plans to extend the runways at Kahului Airport on Maui and Lihue Airport on Kauai. The dispute over the Maui airport had dragged on for years and was the subject of a lawsuit; the Kauai dispute began just two years ago.The issue: The state has canceled plans to lengthen airport runways on Maui and Kauai.
The runway extensions -- from 7,000 feet to 10,000 feet on Maui and from 6,000 feet to 10,000 feet on Kauai -- were seen as needed to accommodate direct flights of jumbo jetliners from Asia and Europe. A similar extension of the runway at the Keahole Airport in Kona has enabled the airlines to initiate direct flights from Japan that have helped the economy.
Environmentalists argued that the direct flights would expose the islands to accidental introduction of alien plant and animal species. Without such flights visitors from Asia and Europe must land in Honolulu and transfer to interisland flights.
Whether or not the flights brought alien species, they presumably would bring more tourists. That is considered desirable by some but undesirable by others, depending on their opinions on economic growth. There are quite a few anti-growth advocates on Maui and Kauai.
In announcing the policy change, Governor Cayetano cited several factors, including reduced airport revenues, improved aircraft technology and the termination of support for the extensions by the airline industry.
The reduction in airport revenues has to do with Duty Free Shoppers, which has experienced a sharp decline in sales. The airport system is heavily dependent on revenue from Duty Free Shoppers. Cayetano said proceeding with the runway extensions would probably have resulted in a need to increase airline landing fees, which could mean raising air fares.
State aviation administrator Jerry Matsuda said the airlines informed the state that they no longer want the runways extended, based on the types of aircraft that are currently being used. Without support from the airlines, there seemed no reason to continue the project.
The state decision is a victory of sorts for the environmentalists but it is likely to be short-lived. Improvements in aircraft technology may enable jumbo jets on flights from Asia and Europe to use the Maui and Kauai airports without lengthening the runways. In any case, direct flights from the U.S. mainland are already in operation and will probably increase.
Introduction of alien species is a continuing problem that must be addressed with vigilance in checking arriving passengers, whether in Honolulu or on the neighbor islands. There is no hope of dealing with the problem by restricting flights.
Tourism is growing faster on the neighbor islands than Oahu and that trend can be expected to continue. And it doesn't matter very much whether the airport runways are extended.
Hackers immobilize
big Internet sitesA computer data assault immobilized Yahoo!, the Internet's most popular search engine and information portal, for nearly three hours on Monday. The next day, hackers attacked eBay, Amazon.com, Buy.com and Cnn.com, raising questions about the security of other sites on the World Wide Web. The attacks caused much inconvenience for Internet users. While the financial effects were negligible, it showed the potential for significant damage on the new e-commerce battlefield.
The attacks came a year after hackers vandalized federal Web sites, including those of the White House, the FBI and the U.S. Senate. The hackers were believed to include a group in Portugal and a teen-ager in Virginia.
Their ability to cripple government Web sites demonstrated a disturbing ability to damage national security, prompting the Defense Department to install what it said would be a more secure "firewall" protection between its computers and those outside the Pentagon.
This week's attacks are known in the industry as distributed-denial-of-service attacks, in which a flood of data is directed at a site, causing its network to become clogged.
At least 50 computers are believed to have been used to overwhelm Yahoo with one gigabyte a second -- the normal yearly traffic for some sites. Technicians eventually were able to identify the data and remove them from the network. The hackers did not infiltrate the Yahoo network or gain access to any internal files or data.
Yesterday's attacks followed the same pattern, with a huge flow of automated messages landing on the sites.
The attacks apparently were aimed only at creating mischief. Still, the effectiveness of the attacks are causing some alarm because of Yahoo's heavy reinforcement.
"The fact that Yahoo was taken down means nobody is really safe," said Elias Levy, chief technology officer for SecurityFocus.com, which researches computer security issues.
The FBI describes the vulnerability of Web sites as "widespread, well-known and readily accessible on most networked systems."
The attack on Yahoo and the other sites shows the shortcomings in security and the need for more effective firewalls in this new venue of commerce and information.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
