Fergie's Tech Blog: 06/18/2006

June 25: First 'Full Earth' of Summer 2006

Today's New Moon is the first of the summer, and the first "Full Earth" of the summer, as well.

Via StartDate.org.

Living on the Moon would be harsh. There's no air, the temperatures range from extreme heat to extreme cold, and lunar dust would get into every nook and cranny of a moonbase. But there would be at least one treat that you couldn't experience anywhere else: a full Earth hanging in the night sky.

In fact, there's a full Earth today. That's because the Moon is new. It's crossing the line between Earth and the Sun, so it's lost in the Sun's glare. It'll return to view as a thin crescent in the west in early evening in a day or two.

At new Moon, it's nighttime for the lunar hemisphere that faces Earth. But as seen from the Moon, Earth is in full daylight, so it casts a lot of light across the lunar landscape. Earth covers about 13 and a half times as much area as the full Moon does as seen from Earth. And on average, every square mile of Earth reflects between three and four times as much sunlight back into space as the same area on the Moon. When you put the numbers together, it means that a full Earth is about 40 times brighter than a full Moon.

To make it even more interesting, from any given point on the Moon, Earth appears to stand in the same position in the sky all the time; it doesn't rise or set, it just hovers in the same spot. So as the hours passed, you'd see different portions of Earth rotate into view. And as the days passed, you'd see Earth go through its own cycle of phases. That includes new Earth -- when the Moon is full.

Link.

Om Malik: Sidekick 3 Sells for $4050 on eBay

The Sidekick 3
Image source: Engadget

Om Malik writes on his Next Generation blog:

Now some of us have been lucky enough to test out the Sidekick 3 - for instance, The Engadget Boys and Phone Scoop Gang - but even they could not have predicted the mad dash for the new Danger Hiptop, aka T-Mobile Sidekick 3.

One of these puppies just sold for a whopping $4050 on eBay. Not bad for a product that is soon to hit the market, and will be pushed hard by both T-Mobile, and Danger. The phone/communicator is going to cost $300 and is likely to be available later this week. Still, this does indicate good times ahead for Danger and T-Mobile. It is a nice device - with a far superior keyboard compared to the Sidekick 2, bluetooth, ability to play music and even vCard support.

With all the celebrities (and some infamous people like Paris Hilton) pimping it out, expect this one to be a monster hit.

More here.

25 June 1981: Microsoft Becomes Incorporated

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Via Wikipedia.

Days after reading the January 1, 1975, issue of Popular Electronics that demonstrated the Altair 8800, Bill Gates called the creators of the new microcomputer, MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems), offering to demonstrate an implementation of the BASIC programming language for the system. Gates had neither an interpreter nor an Altair system, yet in the eight weeks before the demo he and Allen developed the interpreter. The interpreter worked at the demo and MITS agreed to distribute Altair BASIC.

Gates left Harvard University, moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where MITS was located, and founded Microsoft there. The name Microsoft, without the hyphen, was first used in a letter from Gates to Allen on November 29, 1975, and on November 26, 1976 the name became a registered trademark.

The company's first international office was founded on November 1, 1978, in Japan, entitled "ASCII Microsoft" (now called "Microsoft Japan"). On January 1, 1979, the company moved from Albuquerque to a new home in Bellevue, Washington. Steve Ballmer joined the company on June 11, 1980, and would later succeed Bill Gates as CEO.

The company restructured on June 25, 1981, to become an incorporated business in its home state of Washington (with a further change of its name to "Microsoft, Inc."). As part of the restructuring, Bill Gates became president of the company and Chairman of the Board, and Paul Allen became Executive Vice President.

More here.

UK: IT Expert Worked With July 7 Bombers & Warned Police

Ed Vulliamy writes in The Guardian Unlimited:

A computer expert who worked alongside two of the July 7 bombers claims today that he tried to warn the police about their activities almost two years before the suicide attacks.

Speaking for the first time about his work, Martin Gilbertson, 45, says he produced anti-western propaganda videos, secured websites and encrypted emails for Muslims who were involved in an Islamic bookshop and a youth centre attended by bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer. Mr Gilbertson was also employed to establish firewalls that would safeguard both places from outside interference.

By October 2003, he says he was so alarmed by what he was producing in Beeston, West Yorkshire that he went to the local Holbeck police station, saying he had material and names he wanted to deliver to anti-terrorist officers. He was told to post his material, and did so, to West Yorkshire police headquarters in Wakefield. The package contained DVD material he had compiled for circulation by the bookshop, a list of names including Khan and Tanweer and a covering letter giving a contact telephone number.

He claims he heard nothing until he was interviewed three times by two officers from the Metropolitan police, having contacted them after the explosions.

More here.

Australia: Broadband Subscription Usage Hits 3M

Via Australian IT.

Australia now has more than 3 million broadband internet services, up 78 per cent on the 1.8 million recorded in March 2005.

Of the 3.16 million services recorded at the end of March, 2.3 million were on ADSL services, the latest figures from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's Snapshot of Broadband Deployment report show.

But other forms of broadband, such as wireless, were also growing, ACCC commissioner Ed Willet said.

More here.

Picture of the Day: Man Eats 22 Hotdogs in 12 minutes

Pat Philbin of Moonachie, N.J., shows off his trophy after winning the New Jersey Regional competition of the Nathan's Famous 2006 Hot Dog Circuit, Friday, June 23, 2006, at the New Jersey Turnpike's Molly Pitcher Travel Plaza in Cranbury, N.J. Philbin won after eating 22 hot dogs in 12 minutes and will compete in the 91st Fourth of July International Hot Dog-Eating Contest to take place in Coney Island, N.Y.

Image source: Boston Globe / AP Photo / George Olivar

Story here.

Connecticut DMV Workers Charged with Selling Registration Info

An AP newswire article, via The Boston Globe, reports that:

Two employees of the [Connecticut] state Department of Motor Vehicles are accused of conspiring to sell car registration information to a New York dealer.

Jason Rodriguez, 36, and Omayra Vargas, 35, both of Hartford, were arrested this week and charged with conspiracy to receive a bribe and committing a computer crime, police said.

Rodriguez and Vargas, who both worked in the DMV's office in Wethersfield, allegedly conspired to accept a bribe from the dealer in return for giving him details about certain older, potentially valuable cars owned by Connecticut residents, police said.

That dealer, 43-year-old Robert Russo of Commack, N.Y., was arrested in May on bribery charges in connection with the alleged incident, police said.

More here.

Political Toon: Torture Etiquette

Click for larger image.

U.S. Plays Terror Card in Hearing on AT&T Wiretap Lawsuit

Bob Egelko writes in The San Francisco Chronicle:

A lawsuit accusing AT&T of illegally collaborating in government electronic surveillance will help terrorists communicate "more securely and more efficiently'' unless it is promptly dismissed, a Bush administration lawyer argued in a packed San Francisco courtroom Friday.

If the privacy-rights case is allowed to proceed, AT&T will have to admit or deny that it gave the National Security Agency access to its telephone and e-mail networks and database so the government could eavesdrop on communications between Americans and suspected terrorists in other countries, said Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler.

An admission either way by AT&T would betray "a state secret of the highest order,'' he said.

When Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker pointed out that the alleged cooperation of AT&T and other telecommunications companies has been widely reported in the press, Keisler said public confirmation or denial would allow terrorists to replace suspicion with certainty.

More here.

U.S. Officials Defend Bank Data Tracking

Greg Miller and Josh Meyer write in The Los Angeles Times:

In response to the Sept. 11 attacks, the Treasury Department sought to enlist a reluctant ally. The world's banking industry long had been loath to give up data on its customers, so U.S. investigators issued a subpoena for just a narrow slice of information from a worldwide financial consortium.

The reply stunned Treasury officials.

The consortium couldn't extract the shards of data that U.S. terrorism analysts were looking for, so it offered something far more generous.

"They said, 'We'll give you all the data,' " Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said Friday during a news conference in which he defended the espionage program.

More here.

24 June 1948: Start of the Berlin Blockade

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Loading milk on a West Berlin-bound plane.
Image source: Wikipedia

Via Wikipedia.

The Berlin Blockade (June 24, 1948 to May 11, 1949) became one of the first major crises of the new Cold War, when the Soviet Union blocked railroad and street access to West Berlin. The crisis abated after the Soviet Union did not act to stop American, British and French humanitarian airlifts of food and other provisions to the Western-held sectors of Berlin; referred to as Operation Vittles. The Berlin Blockade was one of the largest blockades in history.

When World War II ended in Europe on May 8, 1945, Soviet and Western (U.S., British, and French) troops were located in arbitrary places, essentially, along a line in the center of Europe. From July 17 to August 2, 1945, the victorious Allied Powers reached the Potsdam Agreement on the fate of post-war Europe, calling for the division of a defeated Germany into four occupation zones (thus reaffirming principles laid out earlier by the Yalta Conference), and the similar division of Berlin into four zones, later called East Berlin and West Berlin. The French, U.S., and British sectors of Berlin were deep within the Soviet occupation zone, and thus a focal point of tensions corresponding to the breakdown of the Western-Soviet wartime alliance.

More here.

Echoes of Watergate in NSA Coutroom

Kevin Poulsen writes on Wired News:

It was perhaps inevitable that someone would compare President Bush's extrajudicial wiretapping operations to Richard Nixon's 1970s-era surveillance of journalists and political enemies. Both were carried out by Republican presidents; both bypassed the courts; both relied on the cooperation of U.S. telecommunications companies.

But there's some irony in the fact that it was AT&T to first make the comparison in a federal courtroom here, while defending itself from charges of complicity in Bush's warrantless spying.

More here.

Personal Data of 28,000 U.S. Sailors Found on Internet Web Site

An AP newswire article, via MSNBC, reports that:

Personal data, including the Social Security numbers of 28,000 sailors and members of their families, have been found on a civilian Web site, triggering a criminal investigation.

The Navy said Friday the information was in five documents and included people’s names, birth dates and Social Security numbers.

Navy spokesman Lt. Justin Cole would not identify the Web site or its owner, but said the information had been removed. He would not provide any details about how the information ended up on the site.

More here.

Text Messaging Used as Malware Lure

Ryan Naraine writes on eWeek:

Botnet herders have found a crafty new way to lure computer users to maliciously rigged Web sites—via text messaging on cell phones.

The latest social engineering trick is to send SMS (short messaging service) alerts to mobile phones with a warning that the target has subscribed to an online dating service that racked up expensive charges on cell phone bills.

The message includes a URL for the user to unsubscribe to avoid the $2 per day charges.

According to a warning from anti-virus vendor CA, the URL points to a Web site rigged with Win32/Bambo.CF, a Trojan horse program used by identity thieves to hijack sensitive user information.

More here.

The Best Regulations Telco Money Can Buy

Via SaveTheInternet.com.

Charles Cooper, the executive editor at CNet, wrote an article today about the way telcos spin and deceive lawmakers into voting against the best interests of their constituents.

“Since the completion of last year’s telecommunications mega-mergers, small and medium-size businesses have been getting hosed–with Uncle Sam playing the role of complicit bystander,” he writes.

Cooper is referring to the SBC-AT&T and Verizon-MCI mergers announced in 2005. Telco lobbyists spun these mergers as pro-consumer and pro-business developments.

But since the late fall, prices for local private lines have done the opposite — increasing for both consumers and businesses. “Maybe I missed the fine print on the press releases but how do they square price increases with the public interest?” Cooper asks.

Today, these newly re-assembled telco giants are spending tens of millions of dollars to spin lawmakers with the same arguments against Net Neutrality. But decision makers in Washington might want to check voters’ pocketbooks before rubber stamping legislation to gut Net Neutrality.

More here.

Symantec to Exit Security Appliance Business

Paul F. Roberts writes on InfoWorld:

Symantec laid off staff and said it is shaking up its network and gateway security business this week, ending the company's experiment with security hardware appliances.

The company said it will reduce future investment in the SGS (Symantec Gateway Security), SNS 7100 (Symantec Network Security), and SGS Advanced Manager 3.0 appliances, according to a statement provided to InfoWorld.

The announcement is evidence that Symantec is shifting its strategy away from being a "one stop shop" for security wares, and will focus on lucrative security management and services, said John Pescatore, a vice president at Gartner.

More here.

U.S. Republicans Reject Trucking Security Provision

Via UPI.

Republicans in the U.S. Congress this week defeated a provision that would have boosted security for the U.S. trucking industry.

The Homeland Security Economic Security Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill Thursday that would establish regulations for the trucking industry, but Republicans defeated a Democratic amendment that would have required additional security measures for the shipment of dangerous materials, CongressDaily reported Thursday.

The bill directs the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to designate which materials being transported throughout the United States by truck should be considered security sensitive. The list would differentiate between hazardous materials that need extra security provisions and other cargo. Individuals transporting security sensitive materials would have to undergo a fingerprint background check before being issued a permit, CongressDaily said.

More here.

Goofy Product of the Day: Jesus-Themed Adhesive Bandages

Image source: Gizmodo

Via Gizmodo.

Let the Good Lord heal your wicked wounds with these Jesus bandages from Archie McPhee. One box contains 15 bandages that were blessed by the Pope during a special “Bless This Mess” ceremony at the Vatican. Also in the box is a free toy!

As you can see in the picture, portraits of Our Lord and Savior, which look like they were lifted from every scene in The Da Vinci Code, grace each and every bandage. These “designer bandages” (would Jesus approve of his face being used to sell trinkets?) might not heal you any faster, but then again, did he ever think that people would be promoting his name in sports arena with rock music blaring?

In any event, you can grab these spiritually fulfilling bandages for $4.95 per tin. Be on the lookout for Archie McPhee-branded indulgences this fall.

More here.

It Must Be Friday: Clowns Sabotage Nuke Missile Site

Image source: Defense Tech

Via Defense Tech.

On Tuesday morning, a retired Catholic priest and two veterans put on clown suits, busted into a nuclear missile launch facility, and began beating the silo cover with hammers, in an attempt to take the Minuteman III missile off-line. Seriously.

The trio -- members of the Luck, Wisconsin group Nukewatch -- said the break-in was part of "a call for national repentance" for the Hiroshima and Nagaski A-bombings in 1945.

The activists used bolt-cutters to get into the E-9 Minuteman II facility, located just northwest of the White Shield, North Dakota. "Using a sledgehammer and household hammers, they disabled the lock on the personnel entry hatch that provides access to the warhead and they hammered on the silo lid that covers the 300 kiloton nuclear warhead," the group said in a statement. "The activists painted 'It's a sin to build a nuclear weapon' on the face of the 110-ton hardened silo cover and the peace activists poured their blood on the missile lid."

This was all done while wearing face paint, dunce caps, misfitting overalls, and bright yellow wigs.

More here.

AMD Chooses Saratoga County NY for Microchip Plant

An AP newswire article, via SFGate.com, reports that:

Semiconductor maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc., lured by about $1 billion in state incentives, will build a multibillion dollar chip manufacturing plant in upstate New York, creating 2,000 permanent jobs, a state Assemblyman said Friday.

AMD, based in Sunnyvale, Calif. chose to locate the new $3.5 billion plant on a 600-acre site in Malta, about 25 miles north of Albany, said Assemblyman Ronald Canestrari, an Albany County Democrat.

"It's a done deal," Canestrari said.

More here.

Library Director Under Fire for Refusing to Release Private Data Without Subpoena

Merry Firschein writes on NorthJersey.com:

Library Director Michele Reutty is under fire for refusing to give police library circulation records without a subpoena.

Reutty says she was only doing her job and maintaining the privacy of library patrons. But the mayor called it "a blatant disregard for the Police Department," which needed her help to identify a man who allegedly threatened a child.

Reutty, the director for 17 years, now faces possible discipline by the library board. Members of the Borough Council have suggested she receive punishment ranging from a letter of reprimand in her personnel file to a 30-day unpaid suspension. But the Library Board of Trustees said it would reserve judgment until a closed-door hearing next month.

More here.

Study: U.S. Not Prepared for Net Attacks

Ed Oswald writes on BetaNews:

If the United States were to suffer from a catastrophic Internet disruption, it is likely that there would be a significant impact to both homeland and economic security. A report issued by the Business Routable Friday claims that the country is ill prepared for such an event.

The Business Roundtable is made of 160 CEOs from America's largest companies. The group says that there is too much ambiguity in what the response would be from both the public and private sectors.

More here.

The New SETI@Home: Search for Evildoers on Domestic Soil

Via Good Morning, Silicon Valley (GMSV).

"The University of California at Berkeley's SETI@home, a scientific experiment that used Internet-connected computers to download and analyze radio telescope data in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), proved once and for all that no intelligent life exists in the universe. Bad news for them; good news for us! Now the NSA is free to use the name and the idea in its search for evildoers on domestic soil."

- The Huffington Post announces NSA SETI@Home

Verizon to End Service on Commercial Airplanes

Ken Belson writes on The New York Times:

Verizon Airfone, whose handsets have graced the backs of airline seats for more than two decades, will shut down its phone service on commercial airliners before the end of the year.

Verizon Communications, Airfone's parent company, has decided instead to focus on its faster-growing broadband, cellular and television businesses, Jim Pilcher, the director of marketing at Verizon Airfone, said today.

More here.

European Telcos Face Data Retention Cost Issues

Ray Le Maistre writes on Light Reading:

A new European data retention directive designed to help law enforcement agencies tackle terrorist threats is set to cost Europe's telecom operators and ISPs a collective fortune, and it will likely provide rich pickings for storage vendors and integrators.

The European Union's Directive 2006/24/EC "on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks" is already in legal force. It was hurried through the European Parliament following the terrorist attacks in Madrid (2004) and London (2005).

The debate on the directive is over. As a law, it's now a "must do," and a mandatory compliance date is set. The directive's requirements need to be implemented by the EU's 25 member states by September 15, 2007.

By that date, fixed and mobile telecom operators and ISPs will need to have data storage and retrieval systems in place that can deliver on the directive's exacting requirements. Based on a cost assessment by one country, the collective cost to EU service providers is set to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

More here.

Gapingvoid: Eating Children

Via gapingvoid.com. Enjoy!

Apocalyptic Evangelical Online Game Chock Full of Spyware

Chris Williams writes on The Register:

Watchers of right-wing Christian groups in the States say a new apocalyptic videogame released by cultish Revelations-based fiction series Left Behind is riddled with spyware.

Developers have incorporated software from an Israeli firm called Double Fusion. It incorporates video advertising and product placement into the game, and reportedly records players' behaviour, location, and other data to be uploaded to Left Behind's Bible-powered marketing machine.

Aimed at 13 to 34-year-old males, Left Behind: Eternal Forces casts the player as a director of God's Earthly militia, left behind in the Rapture to roam the streets of New York, battling Satan's minions and shooting unbelievers.

More here.

EURid: Cybersquatters Can Get Rich if They're Quick

Via OUT-LAW.com.

Cybersquatters who broke the rules when registering .eu domains can be stripped of them at any time, says .eu registry EURid. But if they manage to sell their domains before being caught, they can keep the proceeds, according to the registry.

Bitter controversy has surrounded the 'sunrise' period of the new domain, launched in April. Several existing domain registrar firms, including GoDaddy, have accused US profiteers of using a lax EURid system to stockpile valuable domain names against its rules.

EURid now says that it will confiscate domains at any time if they are found to have broken the rules. "If we find that someone has provided inaccurate or misleading information in the registration then we will take that domain off them," said EURid spokesman Patrik Linden. "We can do that at any time."

More here.

Verizon Working to Recover Deleted 911 Calls in Massachusetts

Linda Rosencrance writes on ComputerWorld:

Verizon Communications Inc. is working to recover recordings of approximately 1.5 million 911 calls and radio communications accidentally deleted by a subcontractor during an upgrade of 911 equipment at the Massachusetts State Police Headquarters in Framingham, Mass.

According to a Verizon spokesman, a technician at Needham, Mass.-based Dictronics Inc. was doing a planned upgrade last week of a digital recorder used for 911 emergency calls and radio communications between troopers and headquarters. The work is part of a general contract for upgraded 911 equipment between the commonwealth of Massachusetts and Verizon.

After the work on June 13, Verizon officials were informed by the state police that up to 11 months' worth of recordings -- both calls and data -- were no longer accessible. Verizon spokesman John Bonomo said a preliminary analysis indicates that the incident may have been the result of an error by a Dictronics technician.

More here.

Google Offloads Baidu Investment

Via The BBC.

Google has sold its stake in rival Chinese internet search firm Baidu.com.

The US company confirmed that it had disposed of its 2.6% holding in Baidu - acquired before the latter's 2005 stock market flotation - on Wednesday.

Baidu is the leading web search firm in China, a market in which Google lags behind the domestic provider.

Analysts always saw Google's purchase of Baidu shares as a strategic move and Google said it now wanted to focus on its own Chinese business.

More here.

Mobile Phone Users Warned of Lightning Strike Risk

A Reuters newswire article, via Yahoo! News, reports that:

People should not use mobile phones outdoors during thunderstorms because of the risk of being struck by lightning, doctors said on Friday.

They reported the case of a 15-year-old girl who was using her phone in a park when she was hit during a storm. Although she was revived, she suffered persistent health problems and was using a wheelchair a year after the accident.

"This rare phenomenon is a public health issue, and education is necessary to highlight the risk of using mobile phones outdoors during stormy weather to prevent future fatal consequences from lighting strike injuries," said Swinda Esprit, a doctor at Northwick Park Hospital in England.

More here.

Kentucky Blocks State Workers' Access to Blog

An AP newswire article by Joe Biesk, via Yahoo! News, reports that:

Kentucky officials are blocking state employees' Internet access to a political blog that has been critical of Gov. Ernie Fletcher, who was indicted earlier this year in connection with a state hiring scandal.

The blocked Web sites include entertainment and humor sites, online auctions and blogs, but Mark Nickolas, operator of http://www.bluegrassreport.org, said he believes his site was targeted for its political content.

"It's outrageous; it shows that we are in the People's Republic of Kentucky now — that government will block political speech that it does not approve of," Nickolas said.

More here.

Sunnyvale Man Sentenced to 14 Years for ID Theft

Leslie Griffy writes in The Mercury News:

A Sunnyvale [California] man was sentenced today to 14 years in prison for identity theft as part of a more than $1 million real estate scam.

John Shaw, 47, faced up to 27 years after being convicted last year on 14 felony counts, including forgery, grand theft, identify theft, recording false documents, conspiracy, intimidating a witness and perjury.

A licensed real estate agent, Shaw assumed the identities of at least five people, mostly his clients, and purchased real estate in their names. He then sold the property to other names he assumed, pocketing the profits.

More here.

I Have One Simple Request: To Have Sharks With Frickin' Laser Beams Attached to Their Heads!

Dr. Evil

Of course, that quote came from "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery", but I digress.

This real-life AP story comes to us via USA Today:

Alongside the submarines, ships and airplanes participating in large-scale military exercises in the Pacific this month, a team of sea lions and dolphins are expected to patrol the sea.

These marine animals will be flown in from San Diego for simulated mine recovery and mine detection during the biennial RIMPAC war games.

Six bottle-nosed dolphins would find the mines, while four California sea lions would help recover them.

More here.

23 June 1991: Happy 15th Birthday, Sonic the Hedgehog

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Sonic's appearance on his 15th birthday.
Image source: Wikipedia

Via Wikipedia.

Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game character, protagonist of a series of games released by Sega, as well as numerous spin-off comics, cartoons and books.

The first game in the franchise was released in 1991 in order to provide Sega with a mascot to rival Nintendo's flagship character Mario. Since then, Sonic has become one of the best-known video game characters, with his series having sold over 44 million copies.

Sonic is a blue anthropomorphic hedgehog with the ability to run at the speed of sound, a talent which forms a major part of the gameplay of the series. He is 15 years old, 100 centimeters (3 ft 3 in) tall, and weighs 35 kilograms (77 lb). His birthday is June 23rd.

More here.

Ex-Computer Associates Executive Pleads Guilty

An AP newswire article, via The Los Angeles Times, reports that:

A former executive with Computer Associates International Inc. pleaded guilty to obstructing justice by trying to buy the silence of potential witnesses in a stock fraud scandal at one of the world's largest software companies, prosecutors said.

Thomas Bennett, 50, faces as many as five years in prison at sentencing Oct. 12. Bennett was senior vice president in charge of business development for Long Island, N.Y.-based Computer Associates, which since has become known as CA Inc.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, N.Y., alleged that Bennett conspired with other executives to secretly manipulate more than $2 billion in revenue from 1999 to 2000 to prop up the company's stock price.

More here.

Torrentspy Names Alleged MPAA Hacker

Greg Sandoval writes on C|Net News:

A month after accusing the Motion Picture Association of America of conspiring to commit data theft, the operators of a file search engine presented more details regarding the alleged relationship between the MPAA and a man who admits hacking the small company's network.

Valence Media, the parent company of Torrentspy.com, charges the MPAA paid the Canadian resident $15,000 for information on Torrentspy and its executives, according to documents filed Thursday with U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles.

More here.

U.S. Government Mining Banking Data in Anti-Terror Effort

Josh Meyer and Greg Miller write in The Los Angeles Times:

The U.S. government, without the knowledge of many banks and their customers, has engaged for years in a secret effort to track terrorist financing by reviewing confidential information on transfers of money between banks worldwide.

The program, run by the Treasury Department, is considered a potent weapon in the war on terrorism because of its ability to clandestinely monitor financial transactions and map terrorist webs.

Current and former officials at multiple U.S. agencies acknowledged the program's existence, but spoke on condition of anonymity, citing its sensitive nature. "We're very, very protective of it," said a senior U.S. official familiar with the program. "It is extremely valuable."

The program is part of an arsenal of aggressive measures the government has adopted since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that yield new intelligence, but also circumvent traditional safeguards against abuse and raise concerns about intrusions on privacy.

More here.

N.Y. Lawmaker Drops Suit Claiming Google Profits From Child Porn

An AP newswire article, via SFGate.com, reports that:

A suburban politician has dropped a federal lawsuit that had claimed the search engine company Google Inc. profits from child pornography.

Jeffrey Toback, a member of the Nassau County Legislature, filed suit in May claiming Google had "paid links" to Web sites containing child pornography. "They take money from these sites," he said.

A Google spokesman at the time denied the allegations and said the company takes numerous steps to prevent access to child pornography.

More here.

Senate Committee Chairman Says 'No' to Net Neutrality

Wayne Rash writes on eWeek:

Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) told eWEEK on June 22 that he does not want any sort of net neutrality legislation to be part of the telecom bill currently being debated by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

The committee held a markup session on Senate Bill 2686, the Communications, Consumers' Choice and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 on the afternoon of June 22.

A markup session is when the Senate committee considers amendments to the current version of a bill before it goes before the full Senate for a vote.

The June 22 meeting was the first in what promises to be a long series of meetings extending over the course of several days or weeks.

The bulk of the debate was aimed at two areas: funding communications initiatives for the War on Terrorism and for VOIP (voice over IP) legislation.

More here.

Jail Time for Payola Search Engines?

Andrew Orlowski writes on The Register:

A South Carolina senator has proposed that search engines which offer pay-to-play deals should face sanctions - including jail time for the company executives.

The latest amendment to this year's doorstop telecomms legislation, S.2686, was tabled by Jim DeMint (R), and targets search sites which "prioritize or give preferential or discriminatory treatment in the methodology used to determine Internet-search results based on an advertising or other commercial agreement with a third party".

Violators would face a $5m fine - and executives would be liable for a custodial sentence.

More here.

Privacy Advocates Slam AT&T on Customer Records

Ritsuko Ando writes for Reuters:

Privacy advocates slammed AT&T Inc. on Thursday for declaring that it owned its Internet and video customers' account information and could hand the data over to law enforcement if needed.

AT&T on Wednesday updated its privacy policy, which came as the company and other phone operators faced lawsuits claiming they aided a U.S. government domestic spying program by inappropriately handing over millions of call records.

More here.

U.S. House Panel Approves Wiretap Inquiry Resolution

Stephanie Sonntag writes for UPI:

GOP lawmakers are threatening to pass a "resolution of inquiry" forcing the handover of documents about the president's program of warrantless wiretapping.

The House Judiciary Committee approved a Democrat-sponsored "resolution of inquiry" Wednesday requiring the administration to turn over records concerning any government requests for "access to telephone communications records of persons in the United States" not made under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or other criminal statutes.

At the committee meeting, Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wisc., expressed his frustration with the administration, which has stonewalled congressional requests for information about the controversial program -- designed to monitor telephone calls, e-mails and other electronic communications into and out of the United States by people believed linked to terrorist groups like al-Qaida.

"I have concerns about the justice department's lack of cooperation in providing the committee information," Sensenbrenner said, adding that the committee ought to approve the resolution to "send the administration a message."

More here.

Nine Indicted In Debit Card Skimming Scheme: $1 Million In Losses

Laurie Sullivan writes on TechWeb News:

Federal authorities arrested eight defendants accused of skimming bank account information from debit cards from more than 100 people at restaurants in Southern California. The information was used to steal money from the victims' bank accounts and purchase Postal money orders, a U.S. Postal Inspector said Wednesday.

Investigators for the three agencies involved in the arrests -- the United States Postal Inspection Service, IRS Criminal Investigation, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- believe the scheme resulted in the theft of more than $1 million.

More here.

Boeing Evaluating the Future of Connexion

A Reuters newswire article, via Yahoo! News, reports that:

Boeing Co. on Thursday said it is evaluating the prospects for Connexion, its in-flight Internet venture, but declined to comment on a press report that the company may sell or close the unit.

The Wall Street Journal reported in Thursday's editions that Boeing may dump Connexion, which has failed to turn a profit in six years.

More here.

Online Game Becomes Sexploitation Site

Fiore Mastroianni reports on ABC News' "The Blotter":

In an attempt to avoid traceable e-mails, pedophiles are using online games, including Sony's Everquest, to target and communicate with their victims, according to federal investigators.

Federal prosecutors in Illinois today announced the arrest of 40-year-old John Wayne Malone, of Pittsburgh, Texas, for using Everquest to lure a 14-year-old girl in Moline, Ill. into sending provocative, naked photos of herself and participating in online sex chats.

He was charged with sexual exploitation of a minor and receiving pornographic material over the internet, officials said.

According to an affidavit filed in the case, Malone used the Everquest characters "Elveron" and "Bezapada" to make and continue contact with the girl.

More here.

City of Austin Needs Emergency Geek Squad

Amy Hadley writes on News8Austin:

When Katrina evacuees headed to Austin, they needed to be able to communicate.

Pete Collins, chief information officer for the city of Austin, made sure people had the technology they needed.

While the job got done, Collins wants to smooth out the operations, if it happens again.

"I need to put an IT group together, a response group for the city. That way, if we have this happen again, I have this resource pool that's already pre-defined," Collins said.

Collins is calling companies to find out what they can do in the next disaster.

The city is also looking for 100 tech savvy volunteers to make up the Technical Response Team.

More here.

FTC Laptop Theft Exposes Consumer Data

...and the beat goes on. Unbelievable.

Brian Krebs writes on Security Fix:

The Federal Trade Commission -- an agency whose mission includes consumer protection and occasionally involves suing companies for negligence in protecting customer information -- today disclosed a recent theft of two laptop computers containing personal and financial data on consumers.

In a statement, the FTC said two employee laptops were stolen from a locked vehicle. The PCs contained data on about 110 people that was "gathered in law enforcement investigations and included, variously, names, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and in some instances, financial account numbers."

The commission said it has "no reason to believe the information on the laptops, as opposed to the laptops themselves, was the target of the theft. In addition, the stolen laptops were password protected and the personal information was a very small part of several thousand files contained in one of the laptops." The agency also said it would offer affected individuals one year of free credit monitoring.

More here.

Experimental Military Microsatellites Reach Orbit

A Spaceflight Now article by Justin Ray, via Space.com, reports that:

An experimental U.S. military project to characterize the performance of two micro-satellite trailblazers operating 22,300 miles (35,888 kilometers) above Earth and a prototype maneuvering motor for small spacecraft began with a beautiful blastoff from Cape Canaveral Wednesday evening.

The Micro-Satellite Technology Experiment, or MiTEx, was successfully delivered into space by Boeing's workhorse Delta 2 rocket. Launch from pad 17A occurred at 6:15 p.m. EDT (2215 GMT) after a short delay to clear both a technical issue with the payload and any boats from the restricted waters under the rocket's flight path.

The swift half-hour ascent by the three-stage rocket put MiTEx into an elliptical geosynchronous transfer orbit to mark the 67th consecutive successful Delta 2 mission dating back to 1997 and the 120th success overall in 122 flights since 1989.

More here.

U.S. Inter-Agency Feud Disrupts Data Flow on Terror

Siobhan Gorman writes in The Baltimore Sun:

Nearly five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security continue to clash over who is in charge of coordinating and vetting information on terrorism. As a result, state and local authorities continue to get conflicting or incomplete information - sometimes none at all - on threats inside the United States, officials say.

The feud over control of the information caused federal agencies last week to miss a White House deadline for outlining how it should be distributed to state and local authorities, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said yesterday.

More here.

UK: Web Paedophile Sentenced to Nine Years

Via The BBC.

A sex offender who was caught through an anti-paedophile website has been given a nine-year jail term for sexual grooming and pornography offences.

Lee Costi, 21, was sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court where he admitted grooming schoolgirls for sex.

Costi, from Haslemere in Surrey, was caught when a Nottingham girl told her mother about his chatroom messages.

He was the first to be caught in a police internet operation called the Virtual Global Taskforce.

More here.

Ben Edelman: Spyware Showing Unrequested Sexually-Explicit Images

A ZenoTecnico ad, edited to cover sexually-explicit areas.
Image source: BenEdleman.org

The guru of all things Adware & Spyware, Ben Edelman, doesn't post very often over on his blog -- but when he does, they are well worth reading.

Today, Ben writes:

Are pop-up ads anything more than an annoyance? For advertisers they can certainly be a bad deal -- particularly when spyware-delivered pop-ups cheat advertisers through PPC [Pay Per Click] click fraud, PPC syndication fraud, affiliate fraud, banner farms, or other improper ways of getting paid. For users, pop-ups in overwhelming quantities may cause substantial harm -- especially because pop-up-delivering spyware reduces computer speed and reliability, and because spyware transmits sensitive user information to remote servers.

But spyware-delivered pop-ups can do more than annoy. They can also offend. Consider spyware that shows sexually-explicit (most would say, pornographic) pop-ups. When such ads appear unrequested, they're likely to be shown to users who don't want to see sexually-explicit material. It's a troubling practice -- but all too common even among "adware" vendors that claim to have improved their practices. Meanwhile, some old tricks remain -- like pop-ups with their "X" buttons off-screen, making the ads particularly hard to close.

Much more here.

User Friendly: People Just Don't Appreciate th RIAA

Via UserFriendly.org.

Click for larger image.

Preview of the ICANN Marrakech Meeting

Kieren McCarthy writes on The Register:

There will be much to discuss at ICANN's Marrakech meeting which kicks off this Saturday, but one question rises about all others: what will happen to the internet on 30 September 2006?

ICANN has its own agenda to discuss, but that agenda and what people actually want to discuss are a little different. As is the fundamental issue that everyone at that meeting should be talking about. This is our account of what is likely to happen, why, and what it all means.

More here on ICANN's agenda items here.

Thieves Targeting GPS Units in Cars

Richard Willing writes in USA Today:

Thieves might not want to steal your car as much as the high-tech stuff you carry in it — digital BlackBerries, iPods and especially your fancy GPS system, according to the FBI.

The most recent crime statistics show that motor vehicle theft last year remained nearly the same as in 2004. But thefts of parts and accessories from vehicles, including high-intensity xenon headlights and Global Positioning System devices, has jumped 30% since 2000, the FBI reports.

More here.

BlueGene/L Breaks Another Speed Record

David Needle writes on internetnews.com:

The Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and IBM today announced the world's fastest supercomputer has outdone itself. In its latest testing, IBM said its BlueGene/L (BG/L) achieved a sustained performance of 207.3 trillion floating-point operations per second (teraFLOPS), a new record for floating-point performance.

IBM said its software researchers were able to improve performance with new mathematical libraries that take better advantage of the dual-core architecture of the floating point unit of the PowerPC 440 processor used in Blue-Gene/L. A year ago, BG/L's floating point performance was less than 100 teraFLOPS.

More here.

Senate Panel Poised for Net Neutrality Vote

Anne Broache writes on C|Net News:

The tussle over Net neutrality regulations appears to be nearing its final stages in Congress.

The Senate Commerce Committee plans to begin on Thursday afternoon what is likely to turn into many hours of debate on a broad, contentious communications bill. Committee aides said they expect scores of amendments and, if feasible, a final vote by day's end--though some said the proceeding could stretch into next week.

More here.

'I See,' said The Blind Man: Congress Can't Investigate Spies, it Says

Via UPI.

The U.S. Congress' investigative arm says that it cannot effectively oversee the nation's spy agencies without cooperation from the intelligence committees.

"For us to undertake such work would require the sponsorship of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence or the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence," Derek Stewart of the Government Accountability Office told lawmakers last week.

"While we have the authority to do such work, we lack the cooperation we need to get our job done in that area," continued Stewart. "As a result, unless and until we receive such cooperation, and given GAO's limited recourse, we will continue our long-standing policy of not doing work that relates directly to intelligence matters unless requested to do so by one of the select intelligence committees."

More here.

Wireless Piggybacking Lands Man In Trouble

Via KATU2 (Portland, Oregon).

Brewed Awakenings, with its pithy name, artful drinks and wireless Internet service, has found itself unexpectedly percolating on the forefront of high-tech law.

"He doesn't buy anything," Manager Emily Pranger says about the man she ended up calling 911 about. "It's not right for him to come and use it."

Pranger says 20-year-old Alexander Eric Smith of Battle Ground sat in the parking lot in his truck for three months, spending hours at a time piggybacking on the coffee shop's wireless Internet service for free.

When deputies told Smith to knock it off, he came back and is now charged with theft of services.

As it turns out, Smith is a Level One Sex Offender, but whether he in fact committed a crime by not buying a single tall latte before accessing the Internet, well that remains to be seen. The sheriff's office and prosecutors are now reviewing the case.

More here.

Former CIA Officers Join Northern Virginia Firm

Renae Merle writes in The Washington Post:

Former CIA director George J. Tenet and two other agency veterans are joining the advisory board of the Analysis Corp., a small Fairfax company that has tapped into the government's growing reliance on private sector intelligence firms.

Since stepping down from the CIA in 2004, Tenet has been teaching diplomacy at Georgetown University, his alma mater, and has taken at least one other position, joining the board of Guidance Software Inc., a California technology firm. His position at the Analysis Corp. will reunite Tenet with his former chief of staff and former CIA deputy executive director John O. Brennan, who is the president and chief executive of the firm.

More here.

Spike in Laptop Thefts Stirs Jitters Over Data

Petula Dvorak writes in The Washington Post:

It has become the police-blotter item of our age: A small-time burglar swipes a laptop and fences it for a quick $200 at a pawnshop.

But increasingly, these petty crimes are causing anxiety in executive suites across the country as one corporation after another alerts customers that laptops holding troves of sensitive records have been stolen.

Week after week, Americans who conscientiously shred every piece of mail and all credit card receipts learn that their personal information was stored in the laptop of a low-level employee who casually took it out of the office and that it has ended up in the hands of some penny ante crook.

More here.

Hackers Break into U.S. Agriculture Dept. Computers

An AP newswire article by Libby Quaid, via Yahoo! News, reports that:

A hacker broke into the Agriculture Department's computer system and may have obtained names, Social Security numbers and photos of 26,000 Washington-area employees and contractors, the department said Wednesday.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said the department will provide free credit monitoring for one year to anyone who might have been affected.

The break-in happened during the first weekend in June, the department said. Technology staff learned of the breach on June 5 and told Johanns the following day but believed personal information was protected by security software, the department said.

However, on further analysis, staff concluded that data on current or former employees might have been accessed and informed Johanns on Wednesday, according to the department.

The department said it notified law enforcement agencies. Its inspector general is investigating the break-in.

More here.

22 June 1633: Galileo Forced to Recant Heliocentric Theory

00:01

Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition, 1857 painting by Cristiano Banti.
Image source: Wikipedia

Via Wikipedia.

Pope Urban VIII personally asked Galileo to give arguments for and against heliocentrism in the book, and to be careful not to advocate heliocentrism. He made another request, that his own views on the matter be included in Galileo's book. Only the latter of those requests was fulfilled by Galileo. Whether unknowingly or deliberate, Simplicius, the defender of the Aristotelian Geocentric view in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was often caught in his own errors and sometimes came across as a fool.

This fact made Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems appear as an advocacy book; an attack on Aristotelian geocentrism and defense of the Copernican theory. To add insult to injury, Galileo put the words of Pope Urban VIII into the mouth of Simplicius. Most historians agree Galileo did not act out of malice and felt blindsided by the reaction to his book. However, the Pope did not take the public ridicule lightly, nor the blatant bias. Galileo had alienated one of his biggest and most powerful supporters, the Pope, and was called to Rome to explain himself.

With the loss of many of his defenders in Rome because of Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo was ordered to stand trial on suspicion of heresy in 1633. The sentence of the Inquisition was in three essential parts:

Galileo was required to recant his heliocentric ideas, which were condemned as "formally heretical".

He was ordered imprisoned; the sentence was later commuted to house arrest.

His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future.

In modern terms, we consider Galileo's views on heliocentricity to be no fundamental advance. The Sun is no more the center of the universe than the Earth is (indeed, the question has no meaning, as apparently all locations can be equally regarded as the "center" of the universe).

The Catholic Church held to the prevailing scientific opinion of the day, which was that the Earth was the center of the universe. Thus, for moderns, the key issue of this controversy was not the objective correctness of the theories being debated, but rather the morality of institutions (or persons) using brute force to shape acceptance of scientific beliefs.

More here.

Researchers Hack Wi-Fi Driver to Breach Laptop

Robert McMillan writes on InfoWorld:

Security researchers have found a way to seize control of a laptop computer by manipulating buggy code in the system's wireless device driver.

The hack will be demonstrated at the upcoming Black Hat USA 2006 conference during a presentation by David Maynor, a research engineer with Internet Security Systems and Jon Ellch, a student at the U.S. Naval postgraduate school in Monterey, California.

The two researchers used an open-source 802.11 hacking tool called LORCON (Lots of Radion Connectivity) to throw an extremely large number of wireless packets at different wireless cards. Hackers use this technique, called fuzzing, to see if they can cause programs to fail, or perhaps even run unauthorized software when they are bombarded with unexpected data.

Using tools like LORCON, Maynor and Ellch were able to discover many examples of wireless device driver flaws, including one that allowed them to take over a laptop by exploiting a bug in an 802.11 wireless driver. They also examined other networking technologies including Bluetooth, Ev-Do (EVolution-Data Only), and HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access).

More here.

Bad Week for Excel: Third Microsoft Excel Exploit Posted

Robert McMillan writes on NetworkWorld:

Excel users have one more reason to worry. On Tuesday, a hacker published code that takes advantage of an unpatched flaw in the Microsoft spreadsheet software, the third such exploit to be disclosed in the past week.

This attack could be used to run unauthorized software on a PC, but it requires that the victim first be tricked into opening an Excel document, according to an alert published on the Securitytracker.com Web site.

The attack takes advantage of Adobe's Flash technology, which can be used to provide graphics and animation to Excel documents. "When the target user opens the Excel file, the [malicious] Flash code will execute automatically without user interaction," the alert states.

More here.

More Telco-Sponsored Net Nuetrality Propaganda

This banner ad showed up atop one of the MSNBC story pages this afternoon, just as the massive (and sneaky) telecom "reform" legislation sponsored by Sen. Ted Stevens (R.-Alaska) is being debated in Washington.

This "Internet of The Future" ad comes to us from the same folks who sponsor the "Hands Off the Internet" campaign -- the telcos.

Ya gotta see this here:

http://www.internetofthefuture.org/

House Will Move on NSA Wiretapping Law

Via UPI.

The chairman of the House intelligence committee has agreed to hold hearings about legislation to regulate the president's program of warrantless wiretaps.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Ill., made the commitment in an exchange with the senior-most Democrat on the committee, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., on the House floor Tuesday.

The program -- under which the National Security Agency listens to the phone calls of terrorist suspects into and out of the United States -- was initiated by President Bush in Ovtober 2001, but only reveled to the public by leaks to the New York Times last year.

More here.

AT&T Re-Writes the Rules: Your Data Isn't Yours

David Lazarus writes in The San Francisco Chronicle:

AT&T has issued an updated privacy policy that takes effect Friday. The changes are significant because they appear to give the telecom giant more latitude when it comes to sharing customers' personal data with government officials.

The new policy says that AT&T -- not customers -- owns customers' confidential info and can use it "to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."

The policy also indicates that AT&T will track the viewing habits of customers of its new video service -- something that cable and satellite providers are prohibited from doing.

Moreover, AT&T (formerly known as SBC) is requiring customers to agree to its updated privacy policy as a condition for service -- a new move that legal experts say will reduce customers' recourse for any future data sharing with government authorities or others.

More here.

Shocker: Data Brokers Invoke Fifth Amendment

Jeffery Silva writes on RCR Wireless News:

Eleven data-broker executives invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, refusing to answer questions of the House Commerce oversight and investigations subcommittee about deceptive practices for acquiring and selling mobile phone records and other customer information to banks, major corporations, law enforcement, news outlets and others.

The revelation earlier this year that Internet data brokers were using fraudulent means to help secure customer cell phone records ignited a flurry of lawsuits and investigations by federal and state officials.

Despite refusal of data brokers to testify, the House Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas) vowed to continue the investigation and said he would meet with House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) this afternoon to ask why a committee-passed bill outlawing fraudulent access to phone records—a practice called pre-texting—was suddenly pulled from a scheduled House vote on May 2.

In a May 11 letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), ranking House telecom and Internet subcommittee member Edward Markey (D-Mass.) referred to speculation the House Intelligence Committee blocked full House consideration of the phone-records bill because some lawmakers want an exemption from the legislation’s privacy protection provisions for intelligence gathering activities.

More here.

F-Secure: Hiding the Unseen

Mailbot.AZ also attempts to detect and avoid some of the more popular rootkit detectors.
Image source: F-Secure

Antti writes over on the F-Secure "News from the Lab" Blog:

Many of our readers have probably heard of Alternate Data Streams (ADS) on NTFS. They're not that well documented and there are only a few tools that can actually handle them. Lately we've been looking at variants of the Mailbot family that use hidden streams to hide themselves.

Let's take Mailbot.AZ (aka Rustock.A) as an example. There's only a single component lying on the disk, and that is a kernel-mode driver. It's stored as hidden data stream attached to the system32 folder (yes, folders can have data streams as well)! Saving your data into Alternate Data Streams is usually enough to hide from many tools.

However, in this case, the stream is further hidden using rootkit techniques, which makes detection and removal quite challenging. Because Mailbot.AZ is hiding something that's not readily visible, it's very likely that many security products will have a tough time dealing with this one.

We've just released a new version of our BlackLight rootkit scanner (Build 2.2.1041) that can detect current variants of Mailbot.

More here.

Newsweek: Protecting Covert CIA Operatives' Identities

Answer: Make sure your spouse doesn't end up on the bad side of the Bush administration.

Sorry -- I couldn't resist.

Mark Hosenball writes in Newsweek:

Financial records and résumés are available with a few keystrokes, so the CIA must adapt the cover stories and fake IDs used by U.S. spies.

In a recent report, the Senate intel committee said it was "concerned" the agency has not modernized its methods for establishing "nonofficial cover" — known as NOC — for CIA officers who want to operate overseas but away from official outposts like U.S. embassies and consulates.

More here.

NASA's Chandra X-Ray Telescope Solves Black Hole Paradox

Via NASA.

Black holes light up the universe and astronomers may finally know how. New data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory show for the first time powerful magnetic fields are the key to these brilliant and startling light shows.

It is estimated up to one quarter of the radiation in the universe emitted since the big bang comes from material falling towards supermassive black holes, including those powering quasars, the brightest known objects. For decades, scientists have struggled to understand how black holes, the darkest objects in the universe, can be responsible for such prodigious amounts of radiation.

New X-ray data from Chandra give the first clear explanation for what drives this process: magnetic fields. Chandra observed a black hole system in our galaxy, known as GRO J1655-40 (J1655, for short), where a black hole was pulling material from a companion star into a disk.

More here.

Photo of the Day: Stonehenge's Day in the Sun

A man stands on top of Stonehenge as the sun rises on June 21, 2006 in Amesbury, England. An estimated 19,000 people celebrated the start of the longest day of the year at the 5,000-year-old stone circle. Only four arrests were made at the all night party.
Image source: C|Net / Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

FIFA Voices Doubts on South African IT for 2010 World Cup

Daniel Thomas writes on Computing (UK):

FIFA has started preparations for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, but has expressed concerns that the country’s IT infrastructure is inadequate in its present state.

Football governing body FIFA is hoping to reuse large parts of the technology infrastructure from this month’s tournament in Germany, but says lack of bandwidth could make it difficult to run accreditation, event management and football results systems in the same way.

More here.

FCC: Internet Phone Subscribers Must Pay Into USF

A Reuters newswire article by Jeremy Pelofsky, via Yahoo! News, reports that:

Consumers who use wireless or Internet-based telephones could see their bills rise, as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission approved on Wednesday a new plan for funding phone service subsidies.

The FCC ordered Internet telephone services like Vonage Holdings Corp. to contribute part of their revenue into the Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes phone service to rural and low-income areas as well as communications services and Internet access for schools, hospitals and libraries.

The agency also increased the amount wireless telephone providers would have to pay into the fund. The move may lead to higher bills for wireless and Internet telephone customers because the companies typically pass the fees on to customers.

More here.

StarDate Featured Image: Arresting Sight

Two impact craters on Mars look like handcuffs in this view from the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. The rims of the craters are eroded and the craters are filled with sand, which forms small dunes around the edges. This indicates that the craters are probably very old.
Image source: StarDate.org / NASA / JPL / MSSS

Via StarDate.org.

Yahoo! Login Server Problems

And yes, I can attest that the problem still exists at 09:45 CDT -05:00 UTC (my sbcglobal.net e-mail account is a Yahoo! hosted service).

Via the SANS ISC Dialy Handlers Diary.

We have received a number of reports indicating problems with various parts of Yahoo! services (mail, IM, groups). These services all seem to work properly with cached credentials, so we suspect that there is a problem with part of the authentication system.

We have _no_ confirmed information of what is the source of these difficulties, but will continue to monitor and update this diary when more information is available.

Link.

User Friendly: P2P File-Sharing is 'Contained'

Via UserFriendly.org.

Click for larger image.

Did The Telcos Break The Law In Getting Merger Approvals?

Mike Masnick writes over on techdirt.com:

In case you didn't already have enough information on how the telcos have lied and cheated their way to power, taking public funds and assets, and breaking the promises made to get that loot, here's another one for you.

Larry Lessig points out that Gary Reback (the famed lawyer who spent a good part of the 1990s trying to get Microsoft taken down for antitrust violations) is focusing on a new case: showing how the telcos and the government broke the law in approving some of the recent big telco mergers (the same mergers that helped those telcos get rid of competition, now allowing them to do things like get rid of network neutrality).

More here.

Canada: High-Tech Criminal Ring Clones Debit Cards

Ingrid Peritz writes in The Globe and Mail:

Police say they have busted a savvy criminal ring that used wireless technology to clone the debit cards of 18,000 bank customers in the Montreal area.

About $4-million was emptied from consumers' bank accounts before the scheme was stopped, said Captain Michel Forget of the Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police.

Ten people were arrested as of yesterday afternoon, he said.

The criminals mainly targeted convenience stores and gas stations. With the help of accomplices working for the stores, they rigged the stores' debit-card devices, according to police. When customers punched in their personal identification numbers, the information was transmitted, using Wi-Fi technology, to a nearby receiver.

More here.

Dell Laptop Explodes at Japanese Conference

Image source: The Inquirer

Via The Inquirer.

An Inquirer reader attending a conference in Japan was sat just feet away from a laptop computer that suddenly exploded into flames, in what could have been a deadly accident.

Guilhem, our astonished reader reports: "The damn thing was on fire and produced several explosions for more than five minutes".

More here.

Cingular Loses California Court Ruling

Bob Egelko writes in The San Francisco Chronicle:

A state appeals court upheld a $12.1 million fine against Cingular Wireless on Tuesday for charging unfair fees and misleading customers, in a ruling that strengthened state regulators' authority over cell phone providers.

The Public Utilities Commission could assess financial penalties against Cingular for misrepresentations about its service without intruding into the Federal Communications Commission's exclusive authority over wireless rates and infrastructure, said the Court of Appeal panel in Santa Ana.

The court also upheld the PUC's order requiring Cingular to pay reimbursement, plus interest, to customers who were charged early termination fees for ending wireless service contracts before they expired in one to two years. The fees were $150 to the company and, in some cases, up to $400 to its sales agent.

More here.

230 Days of Customer Service Hell over Sony DRM

Via Boing Boing.

This is the permalink to the huge chronicle of my continued customer service experience with Sony BMG to get my DRM/rootkit settlement check and albums. After I (legally) purchased a music album that infected my computer with the malicious spyware rootkit program back in November 2005, I immediately contacted Sony and requested help.

It's now been 230 days since my first customer service call and blog post, and the issue is still not resolved. I've chronciled every e-mail and phone call on my blog - exemplifying Sony's utter incompetence in fixing their DRM woes.

Not only did they lose the CD I mailed them, lose my written settlement claim and then accidentally file two claims for me, they then tried to pawn off Sony CONNECT codes on me when I specifically requested iTunes (I'm boycotting all Sony products, naturally).

Hopefully the phone numbers and e-mail contacts I've posted will help the thousands others still trying to get their settlements from Sony's spyware fiasco.

More here.

'UFO Hacker' Gary McKinnon Tells What He Found

Nigel Watson writes on Wired News:

The search for proof of the existence of UFOs landed Gary McKinnon in a world of trouble.

After allegedly hacking into NASA websites -- where he says he found images of what looked like extraterrestrial spaceships -- the 40-year-old Briton faces extradition to the United States from his North London home. If convicted, McKinnon could receive a 70-year prison term and up to $2 million in fines.

Final paperwork in the case is due this week, after which the British home secretary will rule on the extradition request.

McKinnon, whose extensive search through U.S. computer networks was allegedly conducted between February 2001 and March 2002, picked a particularly poor time to expose U.S. national security failings in light of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

McKinnon tells what he found and discusses the motivation behind his online adventures in this exclusive phone interview with Wired News.

More here.

Tale of a Lost Cellphone and a Public Shaming

Nicholas Confessore writes in The New York Times:

Three weeks ago, Mr. Guttman went on a quest to retrieve a friend's lost cellphone, a quest that has now ended with the arrest of a 16-year-old on charges of possessing the missing gadget, a Sidekick model with a built-in camera that sells for as much as $350. But before the teenager was arrested, she was humiliated by Mr. Guttman in front of untold thousands of people on the Web, an updated version of the elaborate public shamings common in centuries past.

The tale began when Mr. Guttman's best friend Ivanna left her cellphone in a taxicab, like thousands of others before her. After Ivanna got a new Sidekick, she logged on to her account — and was confronted by pictures of an unfamiliar young woman and her family, along with the young woman's America Online screen name.

The 16-year-old, Sasha Gomez, of Corona, Queens, had been using the Sidekick to take pictures and send instant messages. She apparently did not know that the company that provided the phone's service, T-Mobile, automatically backs up such information on its remote servers. So when Ivanna got back on, there was Sasha.

More here.

Visa Says ATM Breach May Have Exposed Data

An AP newswire article by Michael Liedtke, via The Washington Post, reports that:

Visa USA on Tuesday confirmed an ATM security breakdown has exposed more consumers to potential mischief, the latest in a long line of lapses that have illuminated the often flimsy controls over the personal information entrusted to businesses, schools and government agencies.

The latest breach dates back to February when San Francisco-based Visa began notifying banks of a security problem affecting a U.S.-based contractor that processed automated teller machine transactions.

Visa, one of the nation's largest issuer credit and debit cards, publicly acknowledged the trouble Tuesday in response to media inquiries prompted by Wachovia Bank's decision to replace an untold number of debit cards issued to its customers.

More here.

Secrecy Must Not Trump The Rule of Law

Jennifer Granick writes on Wired News:

Are there any legal limits to what the executive branch can do in the name of national security, or is it anything goes?

In separate federal lawsuits challenging the warrantless surveillance of American citizens, the Bush administration argues that courts must dismiss cases claiming that the National Security Agency has broken the law because those claims implicate "state secrets."

More here.

21 June: Happy Summer Solstice

00:01

Illumination on Earth by Sun on the day on summer solstice on northern hemisphere.
Image source: Wikipedia / Przemyslaw "Blueshade" Idzkiewicz

In 2006, the solstice begins June 21, at 08:26 EDT -04:00 UTC.

Via Wikipedia.

The summer solstice is an astronomical term regarding the position of the sun in relation to the celestial equator. At the time of the summer solstice, Earth is at a point in its orbit where one hemisphere is most tilted towards the sun, causing the sun to appear at 23.45 degrees above the celestial equator, thus making its highest path across the sky.

The summer solstice is the day of the year with the longest daylight period and hence the shortest night. This day usually occurs on June 21/June 22 in the northern hemisphere and on December 21/December 22 in the southern hemisphere. The actual date changes due to differences between the calendar year and the tropical year.

More here.

How the VA Data Theft Could Hurt Us All

Bob Sullivan writes on The Red Tape Chronicles:

That lost Veterans Administration data may end up hurting you, even if you're not a vet.

Last month, the VA announced an employee had lost a computer loaded with the identities of 26 million current and former GIs. The dramatic incident has inspired outrage from lawmakers in Washington D.C. Unfortunately, that outrage has taken form in legislation that could make things worse for all of us.

How? It establishes nationwide standards for data security that actually eliminate some consumer rights granted at the state level.

If the Financial Data Protection Act, already passed by the House Financial Services Committee, is approved by the full House later this month, millions of consumers could lose the right to freeze their credit reports. And all those notices consumers now receive after a company loses personal data? Many of those would no longer be required.

More here.

Ohio University Suspends Two Over Hacker Theft

Background here, here, and here.

An AP newswire article, via ABC News, reports that:

Ohio University said Tuesday it has suspended two information technology supervisors over recent breaches by hackers who may have stolen 173,000 Social Security numbers from school computers.

The school did not identify the director of communications network services identified on the school's Web site as Thomas Reid and manager of Internet and systems. Both were suspended pending the school's investigation of the breaches, five of which have happened since March 2005.

A message was left late Tuesday at a home phone listing for Reid.

More here.

How Hard Can It Be To Cancel An AOL Account?

Painfully difficult, apparently.

Jane Wells (CNBC) writes on MSNBC:

AOL: Hi, this is John at AOL. How may I help you today?

Ferrari: I want to cancel my account.

AOL: OK. I mean, is there a problem with the software itself?

Ferrari: No. I don't use it. I don't need it. I don't want it.

[John disputes Ferrari's claim that he never uses the account.]

AOL: Last year, last month it was 545 hours of usage.

Ferrari: I don't know how to make it any clearer. So I'm just gonna say it one last time. Cancel the account.

AOL: Well, explain to me what is wrong.

Ferrari: I'm not explaining anything to you. Cancel the account.

[It goes on like this for 5 minutes.]

Ferrari: Cancel my account. Cancel the account. Cancel the account.

More here.

Toon: World Cup Mania

Click for larger image.

The King of Personal Data Giveaways: The U.S. Government

Competition for Fumbling Data is Gobbled By Govt, 2006.
Image source: eMail Battles

Via eMail Battles.

America's universities admit that, in the first half of 2006, they let a million Social Security numbers slip through their fingers.

Accountants, banks and brokerages have proven themselves to be half as competent at protecting your critical data, conceding to more than 1.9 million lost SSNs. And the health care industry fares even worse: 2.4 million.

But the King of Data Giveaways, with over 40 million Social Security numbers stolen in just six months, is your government... local, state and federal. The raw data from Privacy Rights Clearinghouse's latest report bears me out.

More here.

Listen Up, Kiddies: Files Are Not For Sharing

Image source: TheMorningNews.org

Fantastic job, Matthew Baldwin (and Goopymart).

Hat-tip to John Paczkowski.

Matthew Baldwin writes on TheMorningNews.org:

My son just turned two, and we have begun to teach him the foundations of ethical behavior. To aid us in this endeavor, we purchased a number of books by Elizabeth Verdick: Teeth Are Not for Biting, Hands Are Not for Hitting, Feet Are Not for Kicking, and Words Are Not for Hurting.

Those four volumes might have been enough for the 20th century child. But these days there is at least one more fundamental tenet of ethical behavior that must be drilled into our nation’s youth as early as possible. And so I have taken it upon myself to pen the latest installment in the X Are Not for Ying series.

Read 'Files are not for sharing' here.

Major Hearing on AT&T & Illegal Spying This Friday

Via EFF Deep Links.

On Friday, June 23, at 9:30 a.m., a federal judge in San Francisco will hear oral arguments on the U.S. government's motion to dismiss EFF's class-action lawsuit against AT&T.

Today, the court issued an order stating, "In addition to all other matters pertinent to the hearing noticed for June 23, 2006, the parties should be prepared to address the following questions" -- read them [here]...

More here.

Former AT&T Employees: NSA had 'Secret Room' in St. Louis Data Center

Kim Zetter writes on Salon.com:

In a pivotal network operations center in metropolitan St. Louis, AT&T has maintained a secret, highly secured room since 2002 where government work is being conducted, according to two former AT&T workers once employed at the center.

In interviews with Salon, the former AT&T workers said that only government officials or AT&T employees with top-secret security clearance are admitted to the room, located inside AT&T's facility in Bridgeton. The room's tight security includes a biometric "mantrap" or highly sophisticated double door, secured with retinal and fingerprint scanners.

The former workers say company supervisors told them that employees working inside the room were "monitoring network traffic" and that the room was being used by "a government agency."

More here.

Australia: Telstra to Cut 12,000 Jobs by 2010

Michale Sainsbury writes on Australian IT:

Telstra's customer sales, service and network maintenance arms will take the deepest cuts as the telco dumps 2600 employees over the next two years while mounting a redundancy program to cut as many as 12,000 jobs by 2010.

The Australian has learned that call centre staff at some locations were told last week they must reapply for their own jobs with no guarantee of success as Telstra brought in teams of psychologists to counsel workers.

Telstra will close work order dispatch centres in Parramatta, Perth, Bendigo and Toowoomba as it moves away from a state-based system to a national model.

More staff are expected to be advised they must reapply for jobs this Friday.

Telstra's customer service and sales division will lose 1220 employees in two years and network installation and maintenance divisions will shed 1100 jobs.

More here.

'H-1B Only' Job Ad Posters Accused of Discrimination

Deborah Rothberg writes on eWeek:

The Programmers Guild, an IT worker interest group, has filed 300 discrimination complaints so far this year against companies alleged to have posted "H-1B visa holders only" ads on job boards.

"Abuse of the H-1B program has become so widespread that companies apparently feel free to engage openly in the practice. And we are only reviewing ads for computer programmers," Programmers Guild founder John Miano said in a statement June 19.

The actions have been filed with the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Special Council for Immigration-Related discrimination, contending that specific employers have created "Americans need not apply" job postings on both Monster.com and Dice.com.

These job ads are accused of disregarding the Immigration and Nationality Act, which makes it illegal to discriminate against U.S. workers on the basis of immigration status.

More here.

Cisco Sets Sail for Teleconferencing

Tom Sanders writes on vnunet.com:

Cisco later this year could unveil telepresence as its latest 'advanced technology', chief executive John Chambers said in his opening keynote at the Networkers conference in Las Vegas.

An advanced technology in Cisco's dictionary has the potential to reach $1bn in annual sales and will see a focus of the company's investments in research, acquisitions and partnerships.

Telepressense is essentially next generation of video conferencing using high speed networking and high definition video, Chambers told delegates. It mostly uses existing Cisco products such security and online collaboration tools.

More here.

ZoneAlarm Glitches Hit Eudora, McAfee Users

Joris Evers writes on C|Net News:

Zone Labs has fixed a bug in a recent upgrade to its security software that is causing trouble for some Eudora and McAfee users.

The problems relate to ZoneAlarm 6.5 products released last week, the company said Tuesday. One glitch means the software won't install alongside McAfee antivirus products, while another interferes with date and time stamps in Qualcomm's Eudora e-mail client. Users had complained about the issues in Zone Labs' forums, a representative for the San Francisco-based security software maker said.

All English-language versions of the products are affected. Zone Labs, part of Check Point Software Technologies, on Tuesday released software updates for all its ZoneAlarm products to address the problems.

More here.

HP to Cut 15,300 Jobs

Clint Boulton writes on internetnews.com:

HP today said it would lay off 15,300 workers by liquidating its global operations group and spreading it around to its business groups, the latest in a streamlining plan to make the company leaner and meaner.

Supply chain, procurement, logistics, order fulfillment, customer relationship management and other related functions will be added to HP's Technology Solutions Group (TSG) Personal Systems Group (PSG) and Imaging and Printing Group (IMG).

The company's three main business groups will now have greater accountability over the full range of their operational activities.

More here.

Gapingvoid: Insert Microsoft's Next Big Idea Here

Via gapinvoid.com. Enjoy!

Copyright Battle Threatens Right to Surf and Email Anonymously

Via The EFF.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argued Tuesday that a battle between Internet real estate services over copyrighted images should not threaten the rights of users to surf web pages and send emails anonymously.

The case began when CoStar, a real estate information database, subpoenaed LoopNet, an online real estate forum, over copyrighted photographs that appeared on LoopNet's service. However, CoStar demanded not only the identification of the uploaders of the offending images, but also identification of "downloaders" -- using a dangerously broad definition that includes both those who simply view the photos online and those who merely email links to the photos to others.

"If upheld, this subpoena would pierce the anonymity of virtually anyone who has ever received, forwarded, or clicked on a link to a webpage that happened at one time to contain a thumbnail of a photograph to which CoStar owns the copyright," said EFF Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry.

More here.

Groups Decry Congress' New e-Mail Filters

Via UPI.

More than 100 advocacy groups of all political stripes called on Congress Tuesday to shut down a new e-mail screening mechanism.

The organizations complained in a letter that the "logic puzzle" system prevents citizens from e-mailing their individual congressmen and raises freedom-of-speech issues.

"This tool would block millions of constituent messages from people who expect you ... to listen to them," said the letter, which was sent to members and signed by groups ranging from the ACLU and AFL-CIO to the American Lung Association and the Consumer Federation of America.

The logic puzzle program requires a constituent to answer a random question before their digital missive will be delivered to their representative's mailbox. The advocacy groups contend that effectively blocks messages that originated with e-mail programs provided by a particular advocacy group.

More here.

Bored with eBay? Check out Police PropertyRoom.com

Elinor Mills writes on the C|Net Media Blog:

Not having any luck with bids on eBay? Well, there's another online auction site you might want to hit--PropertyRoom.com. The goods in question are from policy property auctions. That's right, the loot seized from thieves and convicted and alleged criminals.

For example, under the heading "Hot Pursuit Specials" (which features an illustration of a "Dragnet"-style police car), a Sony PlayStation Portable was listed, with bidding at $171. Among the "Fine jewelry items starting at $1" is a 1.5-carat diamond in white gold setting engagement ring, with bidding at a mere $710. There are plenty of car stereos, bikes, cell phones, TVs, even Paris Hilton brand perfume for $5. And also real estate. You can get a 7,500-square-foot plot of land near Alamo Beach, Texas, just blocks from the water, for $4,340. Outside of a four-piece Fantasy Knife Set that looks mildly menacing, there appear to be no weapons listed.

"Today's law enforcement agencies have property rooms full of stolen or forfeited goods. The rightful owners are not easily identified, and once property is no longer needed as evidence, it must be disposed of properly. Enter Property Room," the Web site explains.

More here.

Revolving Door at the U.S. Air Marshal Service

Rhonda Schwartz and Avni Patel report on ABC News' "The Blotter":

Federal air marshals tell ABCNews an expensive hand-held communication system has not lived up to its promise but that their former director has still benefited.

The system, part of a multi-million dollar contract with the Datamaxx company, was pushed for by the former director of the Federal Air Marshal Service, Thomas Quinn. He went to work as a paid consultant for the company weeks after he left the government earlier this year.

Under Quinn, the Federal Air Marshal Service paid Datamaxx more than $22 million for a system of personal digital assistants, or PDAs, that was supposed to allow air marshals to document suspicious behavior and communicate with the ground during emergency situations.

Air marshals say that what they got was little more than a paperweight. "They were represented as something that was going to help us identify terrorists, but there's just no way that it was going to work that way," said Don Strange, a former FAMS Special Agent-in-Charge in Atlanta.

More here.

UK Censor Wants to Police Online Video

Matt Chapman writes on vnunet.com:

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) wants to extend its reach to cover new media content on the internet.

The independent organisation, which regulates British films, DVDs and video games, claimed that the internet is currently a loophole in its powers to ban inappropriate material.

Sue Clark, head of communications at the BBFC, gave the example of a banned video called Terrorists, Wackos and Other Killers where a prosecution led to a nine-month prison sentence for the person who supplied the game.

More here.

Equifax Laptop with Employee Data Stolen

An AP newswire article, via MSNBC, reports that:

Equifax Inc., one of the nation's three major credit bureaus, said Tuesday a company laptop containing employee names and Social Security numbers was stolen from an employee who was traveling by train near London.

The theft, which could affect as many as 2,500 of the Atlanta-based company's 4,600 employees, happened May 29 and all employees were notified June 7, spokesman David Rubinger said.

Employee names and partial and full Social Security numbers were on the computer's hard drive, though Rubinger said it would be almost impossible for the thief to decipher the information because it was streamed together.

More here.

Telefónica Buys Be

Ray Le Maistre writes on Light Reading:

Telefónica SA has spent £50 million (US$92 million) on a British broadband service provider to add to last year's $31.4 billion acquisition of mobile operator O2 plc.

The acquisition, of broadband newcomer Be Un Limited , will help O2 keep pace with the combined fixed/mobile service plans of its main British mobile competitors.

More here.

AMD Considering Plant Site in Upstate New York

An AP newswire article by Mark Johnson, via SFGate.com, reports that:

State leaders and semiconductor maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. are in discussions to build a $3.5 billion chip manufacturing plant that could bring 2,000 permanent jobs to upstate New York, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said Tuesday.

AMD, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., is considering two possible locations for the plant: One in a technology park about 25 miles north of Albany and the other on an 800-acre site in the central New York town of Marcy the state purchased 25 years ago.

More here.

U.S. Police Got Phone Data From Data Brokers

An AP newswire article by Ted Bridis and John Solomon, via Yahoo! News, reports that:

Numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies have bypassed subpoenas and warrants designed to protect civil liberties and gathered Americans' personal telephone records from private-sector data brokers.

These brokers, many of whom advertise aggressively on the Internet, have gotten into customer accounts online, tricked phone companies into revealing information and even acknowledged that their practices violate laws, according to documents gathered by congressional investigators and provided to The Associated Press.

The law enforcement agencies include offices in the Homeland Security Department and Justice Department — including the FBI and U.S. Marshal's Service — and municipal police departments in California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia and Utah. Experts believe hundreds of other departments frequently use such services.

More here.

NTT Cash Card Falls Victim to Hacking

Shihoko Goto writes for UPI:

From taking to prepaid cards from their early years to encouraging people to use mobile phones to purchase everything from train tickets to coffee, Japan has been quick to embrace the concept of a cashless society. Yet that openness to new models of paying for goods and services has backfired, as the country's telecommunications giant announced Tuesday that tens of thousands of its electronic money account holders' information had been leaked.

NTT Card Solution, a subsidiary of telecom giant NTT, reported that a hacker had broken into the server of its Net Cash network and gained access to about 81,105 accounts.

In a statement, the company apologized to its clients and added that it has already stopped selling more cards and terminated all transactions that could be done by existing cards. So far, about $28,318 (3.27 million yen) has been abused as a result of the hacking, NTT Card Solution reported, and it is working closely with the police to find out who had broken into the system in the first place.

More here.

EU Threatens Sanctions Over U.S. Visa Issue

Lucia Kubosova writes on EUobserver.com:

The EU is set to urge the US to allow visa free travel to citizens from new member states and Greece or face similar restrictions from the European side.

A row over the US two-tier visa system for Europeans will feature at the forthcoming EU-US summit, starting on Wednesday (21 June) in Vienna.

More here.

Police to Get Access to Student Data

Michael D. Shear and Rosalind S. Helderman write in The Washington Post:

Virginia's public and private colleges and universities soon will be required to submit the names and Social Security numbers of tens of thousands of students they accept each year to state police for cross-checking against sexual offender registries.

The little-noticed but groundbreaking law is raising concerns among privacy experts about giving police access to a vast new database of student information. They say the data could be stored permanently on hard drives and mishandled, stolen or used for unrelated homeland security or law enforcement purposes.

More here.

Polygraph Test Results Vary Among U.S. Agencies

Shankar Vedantam writes in The Washington Post:

The National Security Agency denied a top-secret clearance to David Vermette this year after two polygraph tests. But the computer programmer still has access to sensitive, classified information -- from the CIA, which independently cleared him after administering its own "lie detector" test.

The FBI recently ran a background check on Wayne Johnson, which led to a five-year extension of his top-secret White House clearance. But when Johnson applied for a job at the FBI itself, the agency made him an offer -- then rescinded it after a polygraph exam.

The Defense Department has long issued Tara Wilk a top-secret clearance. But when Wilk tried to get similar clearance from the NSA, she failed three tests -- leaving her so frustrated she sought help from a hypnotist and a therapist.

More here.

IBM Develops Speedier Transistor

A Reuters newswire article, via Yahoo! News, reports that:

IBM has built a transistor that runs about 100 times faster than current chips, a development that could pave the way for ultra-fast computers and wireless networks, the computing giant said on Monday.

The transistor achieved a speed of 500 gigahertz, which is more than 100 times speedier than the fastest PC chips sold today, and about 250 times faster than the typical mobile telephone chip, Meyerson said [Bernie Meyerson, head of semiconductor research for IBM].

That speed was hit only when IBM researchers, working with counterparts from the Georgia Institute of Technology, cooled the transistor to near absolute zero, but Meyerson said the device still ran at 300 gigahertz at room temperature.

More here.

20 June 2003: Formation of Wikimedia Foundation Announced

00:01

Via Wikipedia.

The goal of the Wikimedia foundation is to develop and maintain open content, wiki-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge.

In addition to the multilingual general encyclopedia Wikipedia, the Foundation manages a multi-language dictionary and thesaurus named Wiktionary, an encyclopedia of quotations named Wikiquote, a repository of source texts in any language named Wikisource, and a collection of e-book texts for students (such as textbooks and annotated public domain books) named Wikibooks. Wikijunior is a subproject of Wikibooks for children.

The continued growth of each of the Wikimedia projects is dependent mostly on donations but the Wikimedia Foundation tries to increase its revenue by finding alternative means of funding such as grants and sponsorship.

The Wikimedia Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a vision to bring a free encyclopedia to every single person on the planet. This includes people who currently do not have electricity, computers, internet, or even clean drinking water. All proceeds from donations, as with all proceeds from all Foundation fundraisers, are fully dedicated to that charitable purpose.

More here.

Canada: Shaw Defends 'QoS Enhancement' Package

Jeff Baumgartner writes on CED Magazine Online:

Shaw Communications and its Canada-based cable MSO subsidiary have filed a series of court documents that aim to "set to record straight" regarding a "Quality of Service Enhancement" package being offered to Vonage customers and customers of other third-party VoIP services that leverage the public Internet.

The documents, filed in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench in Calgary, note that Shaw’s IP-based phone service is offered over the operator’s QoS-enabled, managed network, while Vonage’s service travels the public Internet and is open to packet delays and other "inherent limitations."

Shaw reiterated that its high-speed data customers who also use the Vonage service can take the QoS Enhancement service on a completely optional basis. The enhancement runs $10 per month.

Vonage has previously complained of the tactic, referring to it as a "thinly-veiled VoIP tax," and has since requested that the Canadian Radio-Television & Telecommunications Commission step in to investigate the matter.

More here.

Stephen Hawking Takes Beijing; Now, Will Science Follow?

Dennis Overbye writes in The New York Times:

Like an otherworldly emperor, Stephen Hawking rolled his wheelchair onto the stage of the Great Hall of the People on Monday, bringing with him the royalty of science and making China, for this week at least, the center of the cosmos.

Slouching in profile, draped in black and moving no more than an eyelid to send his words to a mesmerized audience of 6,000, Dr. Hawking ruminated on the origin of the universe as the headliner of an international physics conference.

"We are close to answering an age-old question," he concluded. "Why are we here? Where did we come from?"

But as weighty as his speech was, his mere presence was a powerful symbol of what China is and would like to be.

China wants to stand up scientifically, as it is beginning to economically, and it is pouring money and talent into the sciences, particularly physics. Jie Zhang, director general of basic sciences for the Chinese academy, said his budget had been increasing 17 percent a year for the last few years as China tried to ramp up research spending to about 2.5 percent of its gross domestic product. By comparison, the United States spends slightly less than 2 percent, according to the National Science Foundation.

More here.

Newsweek: Arabic-Speaking Translators -- Smart, Skilled, Shut Out

Dan Ephron writes in Newsweek:

The job search was going better than he'd expected. Daniel Kopp, a fluent Arabic speaker who had moved to Washington, D.C. in hopes of working for one of the government's security services, had already passed the first interview at the Department of Homeland Security.

The son of American Christian missionaries, Kopp grew up in Jerusalem, went to high school with Palestinians and mastered the kind of nuanced, throaty Arabic that most graduates of language institutes back home could only envy. Now Kopp was sitting across the table from Wayne Parent, director of current operations at DHS, who seemed to recognize the worth of this fellow American with an insider's understanding of Arab society.

"We very much need people like you," Kopp quotes Parent as saying at the interview. The operations chief told Kopp that in a meeting he'd just had with the Department's batch of 84 new recruits, he had asked how many Arabic speakers were in the room. Not one hand had gone up.

More here.

Domain Registrars in Court over Patent Squabble

Elinor Mills writes on C|Net News:

Domain name registrar Web.com filed a patent infringement lawsuit on Monday against rival GoDaddy.com. The lawsuit alleges that GoDaddy's Deluxe Hosting Plan infringes on Web.com's patent called "Synchronized Server Parameter Database," which allows customers to have remote access to a control panel that is part of the Web hosting service.

Atlanta, Georgia-based Web.com filed the lawsuit against Scottsdale, Ariz.-based GoDaddy.com in the U.S. District Court in Atlanta. A GoDaddy representative said company representatives had not been served with the complaint and therefore could not comment.

More here.

Big Fish Dive into Arab News Stream

Doreen Carvajal writes in International Herald Tribune:

The media battle for hearts and market share in the Middle East is evolving into a teeming crowd of Western news organizations poised to deliver headlines - and geopolitical views - in the language of the Koran.

Backed by government financing, Germany's public international broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, is preparing to beam as much as 24 hours daily of news programming in Arabic this autumn. France's yet-to-be-named CNN-style channel is in development for a year-end opening, along with a Web site in Arabic and later in 2007 an Arabic television version.

The state-owned Russia Today has similar plans for a Web site and Arabic television along with a $40 million budget, while the U.S.-based news giant CNN is holding back for now, preferring to watch the development of its Arabic Web site, which currently attracts more than 300,000 unique visitors monthly.

"I'm losing track," said Jerry Timmins, head of the BBC World Service's operations in Africa and the Middle East. "There's pretty much of an announcement a week, and it seems to be part of the fashion industry."

More here.

Inouye Rips New Stevens Draft Telecom Bill

Ted Hearn writes on broadcastnewsroom.com:

The top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee Monday refused to endorse the newest version of a sweeping telecommunications bill sponsored by chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), calling the third draft releaselast Friday "a further step backward for consumers."

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) attacked the bill on a number of fronts, including Stevens' approach to addressing the ability of broadband access providers to pressure Web-based providers of voice, video and information services to pay for priority access to end users, or to pay to not have their services blocked.

"The new draft's provisions on net neutrality utterly fail to protect consumers and preserve an open Internet. Under the current language, network operators will have the ability to dictate what the Internet of the future will look like, what content it will include, and how it will operate," Inouye said.

More here.

Also, more here in this MSNBC (Reuters) article.

Maine Newspaper Web Sites pwn3d

Rhonda Erskine writes on WCSH6 (Portland, Maine):

The Internet sites of three Maine newspapers were the targets of a weekend attack by hackers. The hackers broke into the sites of MaineToday.com early Saturday morning and replaced legitimate Web news pages with replacement pages that said, "You are owned."

MaineToday.com operates a Web site under its own name as well as Internet sites for the Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal in Augusta and Morning Sentinel in Waterville.

More here.

Qualcomm, Intel Feud at IEEE

Via Red Herring.

A dispute between Qualcomm and Intel has prompted a suspension in the activities of a standards-setting group working on a high-speed wireless standard, according to reports Monday.

The group, working under the auspices of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and its Standards Association (IEEE-SA), had been hashing out the 802.20 specification, a standard that has been promoted by Qualcomm as an alternative to Intel’s WiMAX technology.

On June 8, the IEEE-SA standards board temporarily suspended the activities of the 802.20 working group until October 1, canceling two meetings in July and September.

More here.

Apple in Talks to Offer Movies at iTunes

Hmmm. An opportunity to download DRM'd movies at $19.99 or more? No thanks.

Via Reuters.

Apple Computer Inc. is in talks with most of Hollywood's studios to offer movie downloads via its popular iTunes Music Store Web site, show business newspaper Daily Variety reported on Monday.

Citing unnamed sources, Variety said iTunes might begin offering film downloads by the end of 2006, but currently a price on iTunes is a sticking point in negotiations.

Apple's Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs is said to want one flat price of $9.99 per movie, whereas studio executives want a range of prices that mirrors videos and DVDs at retail stores which, generally speaking, run from discount titles at a few dollars apiece up to $19.99 or more for new releases.

Spokespeople for Apple and most of Hollywood's big studios either declined to comment or were not immediately available.

More here.

Texas Teenager and Mom Sue MySpace for $30M

Claire Osborn writes in The Austin American-Statesman:

A 14-year-old Travis County girl who said she was sexually assaulted by a Buda man she met on MySpace.com sued the popular Internet social networking site Monday for $30 million, claiming it fails to protect minors from adult sexual predators.

The lawsuit claims the Web site does not require users to verify their age and calls the security measures aimed at preventing strangers from contacting users younger than 16 "utterly ineffective."

More here.

Cable Turns to Bandwidth-on-Demand

Via Light Reading.

Seeking a new competitive edge against swiftly growing DSL providers, cable operators are starting to offer new bandwidth-on-demand services that let cable modem users sample faster data speeds whenever they wish.

In the past couple of weeks, two of North America's three largest MSOs -- Comcast and Cox Communications -- have brought out new "turbocharge" products that allow broadband subscribers to boost their data download speeds temporarily for no extra charge. With the faster speeds, cable modem customers can download multimedia games, music, video, and other bandwidth-hogging applications much more quickly than before.

More here.

NYC Terror Plot Said to Justify NSA Taps

Shaun Waterman writes for UPI:

The Chairman of the U.S. Senate intelligence committee said Sunday that reports of a planned cyanide gas attack on the New York subway system showed the need for continued warrantless surveillance of suspected terrorists.

In book excerpts published by Time Magazine this weekend, Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Suskind reported that U.S. intelligence had in 2003 discovered an al-Qaida design for small and easily constructed makeshift device to produce deadly cyanide gas, and separately discovered the group had a plot to use a series of such devices in a coordinated attack on the New York city subway system.

Suskind, who estimates such an attack would have killed as many people as the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings, reported that, by the time it was discovered by U.S. intelligence, the plot -- hatched by jihadists in Saudi Arabia -- had already been called off by al-Qaida number two Ayman al-Zawhiri, for reasons which are still unclear.

More here.

Blog Pundits Take Lead in Terrorism Intelligence

A New York Times article by Robert F. Worth, via The International Herald Tribune, reports that:

When an Iraqi insurgent group releases a new videotape or claims responsibility for an attack, Western reporters in Baghdad rarely hear about it firsthand. Nor do they usually get the news from their in-house Iraqi translators.

Instead, a reporter often receives an e-mailed alert from a highly caffeinated terrorism monitor sitting at a computer screen somewhere on the East Coast. Within hours, a constellation of other Middle East analysts has sent out interpretations - some of them conflicting - and a wealth of contextual material.

Terrorists have been using the Internet so heavily that the monitors often know more about their communications than military or intelligence officers do.

More here.

UK's First 'Ethical Hacking' Degree Planned

John E. Dunn writes on TechWorld:

A Scottish university has become the first in the UK to offer a degree course in what it describes as "ethical hacking".

The University of Abertay, based in Dundee, will offer the 3-year course from this September with the aim of turning out "white hat" experts to help companies protect themselves from computer security risks.

The course will be thoroughly vetted, with the background of each applicant being studied by The UK Home Office to stop the possibility of criminals signing up.

More here.

1,000 Aussies Caught in NAB Phishing Attack

Lucy Sherriff writes on The Register:

A phishing email claiming that The National Australia Bank (NAB) is bankrupt has caught more than 1,000 of the bank's customers in its net.

The email warns the bank's customers that NAB might be bankrupt. It claims the bank's ATMs are not working and that people are starting panic withdrawals. It invites them to click on a link that will provide them with more information.

You won't be surprised to learn that this link in fact downloads a Trojan onto the hapless banker's machine. This steals their bank login details and password when they follow the rest of the emailed "advice" to go online to check their balance.

More here.

Verizon Sues Vonage in VoIP Patent Dispute

Tim Richardson writes on The Register:

US telecoms giant Verizon is suing Vonage over alleged patent infringements, the broadband telephony service confirmed today.

Vonage Holdings Corp and its subsidiary Vonage America were served with the lawsuit, which relates to seven patents, by Verizon Services Corp and Verizon Laboratories.

More here.

Some Sites Off Limits, Even in a Newsroom

Sara Ivry writes in The New York Times:

Last month, Bennett Haselton, the founder of Peacefire.org, a Web site that promotes open access on the Internet, got an e-mail message from a Los Angeles Times reporter who was writing an article about online censorship. The reporter was unable, from The Times's newsroom, to access Mr. Haselton's site, which also offers instructions on how to get around software installed to block Web site access.

To make sure the block was not a fluke, Mr. Haselton sent a query to other Times reporters to ask if they, too, had failed to reach Peacefire.org from their work computers. Some reported that they could not access Playboy.com or Penthouse.com.

More here.

Nokia And Siemens Plan $30 Billion Merger Deal

Andrew Ross Sorkin writes in The New York Times:

Nokia of Finland and Siemens of Germany are expected to announce today that they will merge their telecommunication network equipment businesses in a deal valued at more than $30 billion, people involved in the transaction said last night.

The merger is likely to set off a new global wave of consolidation and a round of price wars as the telecommunication industry continues to remake itself after last decade's boom-and-bust cycle.

The cross-border deal, which was approved by the boards of both companies, would create the world's third-largest network equipment concern behind Ericsson and a combined Lucent and Alcatel, which announced plans to merge three months ago. The transaction is also likely to put considerable pressure on Motorola, which will fall to the No. 4 position among network equipment makers in the world, just as its business is turning around as a result of its hot-selling Razr cellphones.

More here.

FCC Drops Planned Vote On Multicasts

Arshad Mohammed writes in The Washington Post:

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin yesterday dropped plans to vote this week on whether to require cable companies to carry extra digital channels produced by TV broadcasters, suggesting he could not muster the votes.

Martin last week placed the issue on the agenda for an FCC meeting scheduled for Wednesday, but late yesterday the FCC said it had been removed. FCC spokeswoman Tamara Lipper said in a statement that the item was pulled from the agenda because "there did not appear to be consensus for moving forward at this time."

More here.

19 June 1934: The Communications Act of 1934 Establishes the U.S. FCC

00:01

Via Wikipedia.

The Communications Act of 1934 was a United States federal law enacted as Public Law Number 416, Act of June 19, 1934, ch. 652, 48 Stat. 1064, by the 73rd Congress, codified as Chapter 5 of Title 47 of the United States Code, 47 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. The Act replaced the Federal Radio Commission with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). It also transferred regulation of interstate telephone services from the Interstate Commerce Commission to the FCC.

The Act largely combined and reorganized existing provisions of law, including provisions of the Federal Radio Act of 1927 relating to radio licensing, and of the Mann-Elkins Act of 1910 relating to telephone service.

On January 3, 1996, the 104th Congress of the United States amended or repealed sections of the Communications Act of 1934 with the new Telecommunications Act of 1996. It was the first major overhaul of American telecommunications policy in nearly 62 years.

More here.

NSA Secures Win2K

Thomas C. Greene writes on The Register:

Your tax dollars have been put to good use for a change, as the US National Security Agency (NSA) has been busy figuring out how to make Windows 2000 more secure, and has released a set of templates and instructions to enable anyone to batten down their '2K hatches.

The package had been available briefly at NSA's Web site, but has temporarily been taken down due to overwhelming demand. The files will be available again from NSA within a week's time. Meanwhile, Cryptome has kindly mirrored it all here.

The templates (.INF files) cover domain controllers, domain policy, and server and workstation settings. The recommendation guides are supplied as .PDF files and address numerous topics such as group policy, Active Directory, DNS, certificates, IIS, routers and Kerberos.

More here.

Research Explores Data Mining, Privacy

An AP newswire article by Brian Bergstein, via USA Today, reports that:

As new disclosures mount about government surveillance programs, computer science researchers hope to wade into the fray by enabling data mining that also protects individual privacy.

Largely by employing the head-spinning principles of cryptography, the researchers say they can ensure that law enforcement, intelligence agencies and private companies can sift through huge databases without seeing names and identifying details in the records.

More here.

New Strain of Mad Cow Disease Not Tied to Feed

Elizabeth Weise writes on USA Today:

The discovery of a new strain of mad cow disease that may strike spontaneously rather than through contaminated feed could mean that it will be impossible to completely stamp out the brain-destroying illness in cattle.

The only two cases of mad cow in U.S.-born cattle, found in Texas and Alabama, were a different form of the disease than the strain commonly found in Europe, French prion researcher Thierry Baron told scientists at a meeting in London in May.

Baron believes it is likely that the two U.S. cases — and at least five others found in France, Italy and Germany — occurred in a way that is strongly reminiscent of the most common human form of the disease, which is also not blamed on a contaminant. More research is necessary to know for certain, Baron said in an e-mail sent last week to USA TODAY.

More here.

Senator Stevens Offers (Bad Compromise) Deal on Net Neutrality

Jeremy Pelofsky writes for Reuters:

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens has offered a compromise in the fierce fight over legislation on Internet network neutrality, but stopped short of demands sought by content companies like Google Inc.

Google, Microsoft Corp. and other Internet companies have lobbied hard for Congress to bar broadband Internet service providers such as AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp. from charging them to guarantee access and service quality, often called network neutrality.

AT&T and Comcast, two of the largest high-speed broadband Internet providers, have opposed any obligations imposed on their services or restricting their business operations.

Stevens has added a new section to his proposed bill aimed at preserving consumers' ability to surf anywhere on the public Internet and use any Web-based application, according to the latest draft obtained by Reuters this weekend.

However, the draft by the Alaska Republican does not include a ban on pricing content companies have demanded.

More here.

U.S. Appellate Court Sides with FCC on Unbundling

Eric Bangeman writes on ARS Technica:

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has issued a decision upholding Federal Communications Commission rules on unbundling, saying that the telecoms will have to continue offering access to their networks to some competitors at discounted rates. This allows companies such as Covad Communications to offer DSL and other information services to local businesses.

In 2003, the FCC made an unpopular change to its telecommunications policy, allowing the telecoms to stop leasing their local lines to competitors. This had the effect of constricting consumer choice, as telecoms could freeze out competing DSL providers from leasing their lines. The rule change did not apply to business customers, which prompted the telecoms to sue in an effort to have that portion of the rules reversed.

More here.

Gapingvoid: Giving Up Blogging

Via gapingvoid.com. Enjoy!

China: Zhao Yan Tried Quickly in Closed Door Session, Without Witnesses

Via Reporters sans Frontières.

The way New York Times researcher Zhao Yan was tried today [16 June 2006] in Beijing on charges of divulging state secrets and fraud - behind closed doors, in just a few hours, without witnesses being questioned and with just documents being read out - was “disgraceful”, Reporters Without Borders said.

Zhao’s lawyer, Mo Shaoping, told Reporters Without Borders that the trial, held before the Beijing People’s Intermediate Court No. 2, was over. “The court followed the formal procedure” but had not yet given its verdict, he said. Although no witnesses were questioned, Zhao was present and was able to speak, pleading not guilty, he said. Another defence lawyer said Zhao appeared to be in better health than during his first few months in detention.

More here.

Blimp Company Produces 'TV in the Sky'

In this photo released by the Lightship Group, a blimp, with a 70-by-30 foot TV screen that can broadcast live images, flies over Hillsboro Air Field in Portland, Ore., on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2005.
Image source: ABC News / AP Photo / The Lightship Group

An AP newswire article by Travis Reed, via ABC News, reports that:

Imagine a drive-in movie screen that floats 1,000 feet in the air and travels 15 mph. An Orlando-based blimp company called The Lightship Group has effectively made one, and it could be coming to a night sky near you.

The company recently received Federal Aviation Administration approval for its new A-170 lightship, an enormous blimp that doesn't just say "Goodyear" or "Coca-Cola" on the side, but instead flashes their newest commercials, NFL football highlights, movie trailers or whatever else a company wants to put on its 70-by-30-foot LED screen.

More here.

Australia: Optus Threatens Trouble in Planned Telstra Sale

Michael Sainsbury writes on Australian IT:

Optus has threatened to make the planned sale of Telstra difficult if the dominant telco does not strike a deal with rivals on its planned $3.4 billion fibre network.

The ultimatum was delivered by Optus chief executive Paul O'Sullivan in an unscheduled market briefing where he admitted the company's profits would slump in 2006-07.

But Optus and Telstra's other competitors received some cheer yesterday [15 June 2006] when the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission rejected Telstra's bid to average the price at which it rents its copper wires to rivals. Instead, the ACCC has opted to stick with a regime where there are four different prices -- ranging from inner city to remote Australia.

More here.

Microsoft France Defaced

xyberpix writes over on the SecuriTeam blogs:

Here’s the link to the site:

http://experts.microsoft.fr

Link to the mirror in case it gets fixed anytime soon.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/affandesign/169734004/

Like I said, too amusing not to post.

More here.

Gadget of the Day: USB Teddy Bear Holds Data, Scares Children

Image source: Engadget

Happy Father's Day!

Stan Horaczek writes over on Engadget:

Generally, when someone makes a teddy bear-themed gadget, his/her intention is to overwhelm bystanders with cuteness. But whoever created this little guy, whose head has to be removed in order to access the internal USB drive, must have watched one too many Tim Burton movies.

No word on how much it holds or if there are any plans to make these available for purchase, but with your own bear, a thumb drive, some thread and a closet full of skeletons, you can probably make your own without too much effort.

More here.

User Friendly: Bill Gates Departure Time Slips

Via UserFriendly.org.

Click for larger image.

Sweden: Politicians Smell Votes in Pirate Bay Debate

Ivar Ekman writes in The International Herald Tribune:

The Jolly Roger-waving, pro-piracy demonstrators are no longer in the streets here, but the police raid in late May on the popular file- sharing Web site, The Pirate Bay, is still making waves, increasing pressure on politicians to reform Sweden's copyright laws.

The fallout from the May 31 raid on The Pirate Bay has made clear just how widespread and deeply entrenched file-sharing has become in Sweden. Online forums have been filled with protests against the raid, and a pro-piracy demonstration in early June drew close to 1,000 people. A poll published in early June showed that three out of four Swedes between 18 and 21 supported file-sharing, even if it was illegal.

With parliamentary elections coming in September, five of the seven major Swedish political parties have in recent weeks expressed a will to take a new look at the Swedish copyright laws, which, in accordance with an EU directive from 2001, makes unauthorized downloading or uploading of copyright-protected files illegal.

More here.

Fergie's Tech Blog

Saturday, June 24, 2006

June 25: First 'Full Earth' of Summer 2006

Om Malik: Sidekick 3 Sells for $4050 on eBay

25 June 1981: Microsoft Becomes Incorporated

UK: IT Expert Worked With July 7 Bombers & Warned Police

Australia: Broadband Subscription Usage Hits 3M

Picture of the Day: Man Eats 22 Hotdogs in 12 minutes

Connecticut DMV Workers Charged with Selling Registration Info

Political Toon: Torture Etiquette

U.S. Plays Terror Card in Hearing on AT&T Wiretap Lawsuit

U.S. Officials Defend Bank Data Tracking

Friday, June 23, 2006

24 June 1948: Start of the Berlin Blockade

Echoes of Watergate in NSA Coutroom

Personal Data of 28,000 U.S. Sailors Found on Internet Web Site

Text Messaging Used as Malware Lure

The Best Regulations Telco Money Can Buy

Symantec to Exit Security Appliance Business

U.S. Republicans Reject Trucking Security Provision

Goofy Product of the Day: Jesus-Themed Adhesive Bandages

It Must Be Friday: Clowns Sabotage Nuke Missile Site

AMD Chooses Saratoga County NY for Microchip Plant

Library Director Under Fire for Refusing to Release Private Data Without Subpoena

Study: U.S. Not Prepared for Net Attacks

The New SETI@Home: Search for Evildoers on Domestic Soil

Verizon to End Service on Commercial Airplanes

European Telcos Face Data Retention Cost Issues

Gapingvoid: Eating Children

Apocalyptic Evangelical Online Game Chock Full of Spyware

EURid: Cybersquatters Can Get Rich if They're Quick

Verizon Working to Recover Deleted 911 Calls in Massachusetts

Google Offloads Baidu Investment

Mobile Phone Users Warned of Lightning Strike Risk

Kentucky Blocks State Workers' Access to Blog

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Sunnyvale Man Sentenced to 14 Years for ID Theft

I Have One Simple Request: To Have Sharks With Frickin' Laser Beams Attached to Their Heads!

23 June 1991: Happy 15th Birthday, Sonic the Hedgehog

Ex-Computer Associates Executive Pleads Guilty

Torrentspy Names Alleged MPAA Hacker

U.S. Government Mining Banking Data in Anti-Terror Effort

N.Y. Lawmaker Drops Suit Claiming Google Profits From Child Porn

Senate Committee Chairman Says 'No' to Net Neutrality

Jail Time for Payola Search Engines?

Privacy Advocates Slam AT&T on Customer Records

U.S. House Panel Approves Wiretap Inquiry Resolution

Nine Indicted In Debit Card Skimming Scheme: $1 Million In Losses

Boeing Evaluating the Future of Connexion

Online Game Becomes Sexploitation Site

City of Austin Needs Emergency Geek Squad

FTC Laptop Theft Exposes Consumer Data

Experimental Military Microsatellites Reach Orbit

U.S. Inter-Agency Feud Disrupts Data Flow on Terror

UK: Web Paedophile Sentenced to Nine Years

Ben Edelman: Spyware Showing Unrequested Sexually-Explicit Images

User Friendly: People Just Don't Appreciate th RIAA

Preview of the ICANN Marrakech Meeting

Thieves Targeting GPS Units in Cars

BlueGene/L Breaks Another Speed Record

Senate Panel Poised for Net Neutrality Vote

'I See,' said The Blind Man: Congress Can't Investigate Spies, it Says

Wireless Piggybacking Lands Man In Trouble

Former CIA Officers Join Northern Virginia Firm

Spike in Laptop Thefts Stirs Jitters Over Data

Hackers Break into U.S. Agriculture Dept. Computers

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

22 June 1633: Galileo Forced to Recant Heliocentric Theory

Researchers Hack Wi-Fi Driver to Breach Laptop

Bad Week for Excel: Third Microsoft Excel Exploit Posted

More Telco-Sponsored Net Nuetrality Propaganda

House Will Move on NSA Wiretapping Law

AT&T Re-Writes the Rules: Your Data Isn't Yours

Shocker: Data Brokers Invoke Fifth Amendment

F-Secure: Hiding the Unseen

Newsweek: Protecting Covert CIA Operatives' Identities

NASA's Chandra X-Ray Telescope Solves Black Hole Paradox

Photo of the Day: Stonehenge's Day in the Sun

FIFA Voices Doubts on South African IT for 2010 World Cup

FCC: Internet Phone Subscribers Must Pay Into USF