February 11, 1994

Computer security experts say they now believe that a recent rash of break-ins on the global Internet web of computer networks was an organized effort to crack the security of the world's busiest computer systems. But they remain baffled by the motives of the unknown intruders, who stole tens of thousands of passwords. "It had all the trappings of an orchestrated effort," L. Dain Gary, manager of the Computer Emergency Response Team center, said yesterday. Assault on Gateways Mr. Gary, whose group sent a warning last week to all network administrators on the Internet, said the break-ins apparently began sporadically last summer on isolated computers. But recently, the assault intensified, turning to computers that were strategic gateways to the Internet. One such computer was operated by Panix of New York City, a major Internet service provider. Panix reported that 300 other computers were compromised as a result of the security breach in the Panix computer.

For the first time since World War II, college-educated men in their late 40's and early 50's -- normally the prime earning years -- are suffering a steep decline in wages, finally getting caught in the downward mobility that has hit most other groups of male workers. This is the generation that finished four years of college in the prosperous 1960's and entered corporate jobs confident of steady promotions and rising incomes into their mid-50's. Instead, those promotions and rising incomes have stopped. Much anecdotal evidence has documented this setback, particularly stories of middle-aged men forced out of managerial jobs and into lower-paid work, or unemployment. But only now is the extent of the damage to incomes showing up in Government data.

LIKE the recent "Frontline" documentary on diamonds, the new show at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum tackles the subject of consumer manipulation. The "Frontline" program recounted how the South African diamond cartel conspired with advertisers to maintain high prices by creating the illusion that diamonds were rare. "Packaging the New," which opened this week at the Cooper-Hewitt, traces the history of an esthetic cartel -- industrial design -- and the mythology devised by designers to enlarge the market for furnishings, appliances and other household goods. Focusing on the work of six noted American designers, the show traces a 50-year period beginning in the mid-1920's, when industrial design became an organized profession, and culminating in the mid-1970's, when the oil crisis and environmental degradation prompted widespread disillusion with the industrial juggernaut. Donald Deskey, Russel Wright, Norman Bel Geddes, Raymond Loewy, Walter Dorwin Teague and Henry Dreyfuss: those were the cream of the industrial-design profession. They set a machine-age stamp on everything from cocktail shakers to detergent boxes, airplanes to prefabricated housing, fabrics to World's Fair previews of an utterly transformed world.

His thoughts, he says, are more on the next world than this one, but as he lies beneath a brooding cloud of smoke from his Garcia y Vega cigars, George Corley Wallace is still hoping for redemption before death as well as after it. "They all talking like me," he gasped, pushing out his words in short hoarse breaths. "Nixon. Reagan. Clinton. Welfare reform. Crime. Big government. Taxes on the middle class. They all saying now what I was saying then."

NEW YORK CITY HOSPITAL PROJECT IS CALLED A FAILURE Charging a decade of mismanagement, the new chairman of New York City's Health and Hospitals Corporation said that his agency had "completely screwed up" the planned reconstruction of Kings County Hospital. A1. WAY IS CLEARED FOR A NEW SUBWAY LINK The Federal Government cleared the way for a new subway link between Manhattan and Queens lines that would allow thousands more trips a day across the East River. A1. BOMB MANUALS ARE FOCUS IN BLAST TRIAL The lawyer for one defendant in the World Trade Center bombing trial showed the jury how easy it is in this country to obtain booklets and videotapes on bombs and bomb making. B2. MEMO ON WELFARE IS PLAYED DOWN Mayor Giuliani sought to distance himself from a memorandum written by one of his senior deputies that suggested that welfare recipients should clean up highways and parks as a condition of receiving benefits. B3. SCHOOL DISTRICTS ASSAILED ON SPENDING A City Council panel accused local school districts of excessive spending on meals, conferences and travel for school board members. B3. JACQUELINE ONASSIS TREATED FOR CANCER Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis has been undergoing chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a treatable form of cancer of the lymphatic system, a family spokeswoman said. B3. Seventy-five families were evacuated from an Bronx apartment building after it began shaking and large cracks appeared in a wall. B2. Tenants in five low-income Manhattan apartment buildings are suing the New York Housing Authority, demanding that the agency provide them with adequate heat and hot water. B5. A former spokesman for the Nation of Islam who was rebuked by the group's leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan, insisted that he remained in Mr. Farrakhan's good graces. B4. REGION COURT UPHOLDS MURDER CHARGE Upholding a major exception to New York State's double jeopardy law, the state's highest court ruled that a person who has pleaded guilty to attempted murder may be charged with murder if the victim later dies. B6. NOBODY SHOOTS A LAME DUCK Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. of Connecticut said he would roar through his last year in office like "something coming out of 'Jurassic Park.' " But he has already been rendered something of a dinosaur in the minds of many lawmakers. B4. Frank G. Zarb, a prominent businessman, became the sixth Republican to consider and then reject a 1994 gubernatorial race. B4. Taro, New Jersey's celebrated death-row dog, walked out of the Bergen County Jail Annex, alive but banished forever from the state. B4. American Telephone and Telegraph Company said it would cut as many as 15,000 jobs, including thousands in and near its headquarters in Basking Ridge, N.J. D1. Holiday Schedules B2