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Secret
- 
Alberto
R Gonzales - Civil
Liberties - 
Surveillance
- 
Law
- 
Phone
- 
Internet
- 
Finances
- 
Terrorism
- 
Intelligence
- 
Politics
- "Gonzales
Was Told of FBI Violations: After Bureau Sent Reports,
Attorney General Said He Knew of No Wrongdoing." ... "As he sought to renew
the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales
assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting
powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse,"
Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005." ... "Six days earlier, the FBI
sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal
information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least
half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received
in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence
committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom
of Information Act." ... "The acts recounted in the FBI reports included
unauthorized surveillance, an illegal property search and a case in which
an Internet firm improperly turned over a compact disc with data that the
FBI was not entitled to collect, the documents show. Gonzales was copied
on each report that said administrative rules or laws protecting civil
liberties and privacy had been violated." ... "The reports also alerted
Gonzales in 2005 to problems with the FBI's use of an anti-terrorism tool
known as a national security letter (NSL), well before the Justice Department's
inspector general brought widespread abuse of the letters in 2004 and 2005
to light in a stinging report this past March." ... "The report sent to
Gonzales on April 21, 2005, concerned a violation of the rules governing
NSLs, which allow agents in counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations
to secretly gather Americans' phone, bank and Internet records without
a court order or a grand jury subpoena." (1, 2)
-By John Solomon -WashingtonPost
Secret
- 
US
- 
Foreign
- 
Government
- Intelligence
- Surveillance
- 
Journalists
- 
Academics
- Telephone
- Internet
- Civil
Liberties - Law
- Politics
- 
Michigan
- "Court
orders dismissal of U.S. wiretapping lawsuit: A divided
appeals court says plaintiffs weren't harmed by surveillance program."
... "A U.S. appeals court has ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit against
the U.S. National Security Agency for a wiretapping program because it
said the plaintiffs haven't been hurt by the agency's actions." ... "A
divided three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
ruled today that the lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union
and a group of journalists, lawyers and academics, be sent back to a district
court judge to be dismissed. In August 2006, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of
the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled
the NSA program, which monitored telephone and Internet communications
without court-ordered warrants, was illegal." ... "Judge Ronald Lee Gilman
disagreed with the two-judge majority, arguing that the NSA program violates
FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court], which establishes wiretapping
procedures, including warrants. "When faced with the clear wording of FISA
... the conclusion becomes inescapable that [the program] was unlawful,"
he wrote." ... "The appeals court ruled that the plaintiffs could not sue
because they can't prove they were affected by the program, and at the
same time, ruled that details about the program, including who was targeted,
are state secrets." (1, 2)
-By Grant Gross
-Computerworld
Government
- Surveillance
- Phone
- 
EMail
- Internet
- Financial
- Terrorism
- Intelligence
- Law
- Politics
- "FBI
Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data."
... "An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated
the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about
domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years,
far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that
ignited bipartisan congressional criticism." ... "The new audit covers
just 10 percent of the bureau's national security investigations since
2002, and so the mistakes in the FBI's domestic surveillance efforts probably
number several thousand, bureau officials said in interviews. The earlier
report found 22 violations in a much smaller sampling." ... "The vast majority
of the new violations were instances in which telephone companies and Internet
providers gave agents phone and e-mail records the agents did not request
and were not authorized to collect. The agents retained the information
anyway in their files, which mostly concerned suspected terrorist or espionage
activities." ... "But two dozen of the newly-discovered violations involved
agents' requests for information that U.S. law did not allow them to have,
according to the audit results provided to The Washington Post. Only two
such examples were identified earlier in the smaller sample." (1, 2)
-By John Solomon -WashingtonPost
Religious
- Terrorism
- Internet
- Free
Speech - Prison
- 
Police
- Politics
- 
Women's
- Abortion
- 
Health
- 
Georgia
- 
Alabama
- 
Colo-
"Extremist
taunts his victims from prison." ... "Victims of
Eric Rudolph, the anti-abortion extremist who pulled off a series of bombings
across the South, say he is taunting them from deep within the nation's
most secure federal prison, and authorities say there is little they can
do to stop him." ... "Rudolph, who was captured after a five-year manhunt
and pleaded guilty in deadly bombings at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta [Georgia]
and a Birmingham [Alabama] abortion clinic, is serving life in prison at
the "Supermax" penitentiary in Florence, Colo [Colorado]." ... "Housed
in the most secure part of the prison, he has no computer and little contact
with the outside world aside from writing letters." ... "But Rudolph's
long essays have been posted on the Internet by a supporter who maintains
an Army of God website. The Army of God is the same loose-knit group that
Rudolph claimed to represent in letters sent after the blasts." ... "Diane
Derzis, who owns the Birmingham clinic that was bombed, killing a police
officer, said someone should stop Rudolph." ... "Bureau of Prisons regulations
give wardens the right to reject correspondence by an inmate for "the protection
of the public, or if it might facilitate criminal activity." That includes
material "which may lead to the use of physical violence.""
-AP via -USATODAY
US
- Government
- 
Military
- 
Family
- Free
Speech - E-Mail
- Online
- Surveillance
- Politics
- Foreign
- Intelligence
- 
History
- "Army
Squeezes Soldier Blogs, Maybe to Death." ... "The
U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal
e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer,
Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest
restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war.
And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say." ... "Army
Regulation 530--1: Operations Security (OPSEC) (.pdf) restricts more
than just blogs, however. Previous editions of the rules asked Army personnel
to "consult with their immediate supervisor" before posting a document
"that might contain sensitive and/or critical information in a public forum."
The new version, in contrast, requires "an OPSEC review prior to publishing"
anything -- from "web log (blog) postings" to comments on internet message
boards, from resumes to letters home." ... "Active-duty troops aren't the
only ones affected by the new guidelines. Civilians working for the military,
Army contractors -- even soldiers' families -- are all subject to the directive
as well." ... "The U.S. military -- all militaries -- have long been concerned
about their personnel inadvertently letting sensitive information out.
Troops' mail was read and censored throughout World War II; back home,
government posters warned citizens "careless
talk kills."" ... "Military blogs, or milblogs, as they're known in
service-member circles, only make the potential for mischief worse. On
a website, anyone, including foreign intelligence agents, can stop by and
look for information." -Noah Shachtman
-Wired
Karl
Rove
- Government
- E-Mail
- Archive
- Politics
- History
- Internet
- 
Computer
- 
Science
- Investigation
- "White
House E-mails: Gone, But Not Forgotten?" ... "The
White House set off a miniature firestorm Wednesday when it revealed that
years of e-mails belonging to White House political aides were deleted,
apparently in violation of federal law requiring presidential documents
to be preserved." ... "In an 80-minute conference call with a select group
of print reporters yesterday, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said
that e-mails from 2004 and earlier sent and received by 22 White House
employees, including chief political aide Karl Rove, had been deleted."
... "Without knowing the technical details of how the e-mails were deleted,
computer forensics expert Rob Lee said he couldn't say with certainty if
any of the communications are recoverable. But from his experience
working with the FBI and other criminal investigators, he knows one thing:
Unless the hard drives containing the e-mails were physically destroyed
or lost, "the only way someone could claim something has been destroyed
is if the e-mails themselves have been wiped" from a hard drive or tape
backup, he said, "overwriting every piece of data." That requires special
software designed explicitly to cover any trace of deleted information."
... "The Presidential Records Act of 1978 requires all White House documents
be preserved if they "relate to or have and effect upon the carrying out
of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties
of the President."" -By Justin Rood
-ABCNEWS.com
Karl
Rove
- Government
- E-Mail
- Law
- US
Attorneys - Politics
- Internet
- Archive
- 
VT
- "Leahy
Says Bush Aides Lied About E-Mails." ... "[Republican]
President Bush's aides are lying about White House e-mails sent on a Republican
account that might have been lost, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman
Patrick Leahy [Vermont Democratic Senator] said Thursday, vowing to subpoena
those documents if the administration fails to cough them up." ... ""They
say they have not been preserved. I don't believe that!" Leahy shouted
from the Senate floor." ... ""You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've
gone through too many servers," said Leahy, D-Vt. "Those e-mails are there,
they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary.""
... "Democrats say the firings might have been improper, but that probe
yielded a weightier question: Whether White House officials such as political
adviser Karl Rove are purposely conducting sensitive official presidential
business via non-governmental accounts to evade a law [the Hatch Act] requiring
preservation — and eventual disclosure — of presidential records." ...
""E-mails don't get lost," Leahy insisted. "These are just e-mails they
don't want to bring forward."" ... "The revelation about the e-mails escalates
a standoff between the Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House
over the prosecutor firings." -By Laurie Kellman
-AP via -SFGate.com
Newspaper
- 
TV
- Consumer
- Internet- Ads
- 
Illinois
- Sports
- "Tribune
takes Zell's $8.2B buyout offer." ... "Tribune Co.
spent six months searching for the best way to boost its lagging stock
price." ... "In the end, the solution was barely a mile from the media
company's Gothic headquarters on the Chicago River [Chicago, Illinois]."
... "After a board meeting that lasted until almost midnight, Tribune announced
Monday morning that it would go private, selling itself for $8.2 billion,
excluding debt, to Chicago real estate mogul Sam Zell." ... "Zell, who
earned a reputation for reviving undervalued properties, is now charged
with turning around the fortunes of the nation's second-largest newspaper
company, which like much of the industry is losing readers and advertisers
to the Internet." ... "Among his first acts? Sell the storied Chicago Cubs
baseball team and use the proceeds to pay down debt." ... "Opponents of
media consolidation predicted a staunch fight with regulators in Washington,
especially regarding Tribune's cross-ownership of TV stations and newspapers
in the same media market." -By Ashley M. Heher with
contributions by Dave Carpenter and Wiley Hall -AP
via -BusinessWeek
Consumer
- Database
- Hackers
- Corporate
- Computer
- Net
- Crime
- "TJX
discloses largest data theft: 45.7M customers." ...
"The theft of millions of customer credit and debit card numbers from the
parent of T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and other retail chains underscores the
rising sophistication of cybercriminals." ... "TJX said late Wednesday
that hackers swiped account numbers for 45.7 million customers over a two-year
period — the biggest publicly disclosed data theft." ... "One way hackers
break into corporate databases is by infecting laptops used by employees
and suppliers who are permitted access to the company's intranet via a
virtual private network, or VPN." -By Byron Acohido
and Jon Swartz -USATODAY
Secret
- Terrorism
- Intelligence
- Surveillance
- Law
- Enforcement
- Politics
- Phone
- E-Mail
- Internet
- Companies
- "FBI
Provided Inaccurate Data for Surveillance Warrants."
... "FBI agents repeatedly provided inaccurate information to win secret
court approval of surveillance warrants in terrorism and espionage cases,
prompting officials to tighten controls on the way the bureau uses that
powerful anti-terrorism tool, according to Justice Department and FBI officials."
... "The errors were pervasive enough that the chief judge of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, wrote the Justice
Department in December 2005 to complain. She raised the possibility of
requiring counterterrorism agents to swear in her courtroom that the information
they were providing was accurate, a procedure that could have slowed such
investigations drastically." ... "The department's acknowledgment of the
problems with the FISA court applications comes nearly two weeks after
a blistering inspector general's report revealed widespread violations
of the use of "national security" and "exigent circumstances" letters,
which allow FBI agents to collect phone, e-mail and Internet records from
telecommunications companies without review by a judge. The problems included
failing to document relevant evidence, claiming emergencies that did not
exist and failing to show that phone records requests were connected to
authorized investigations." (1, 2)
-By John Solomon -WashingtonPost
TV
- Media
- Terrorism
- Business
- 2008
Election - Online
- Illinois
- 
Nevada
- "Nevada
Democrats cancel candidate debate co-hosted by Fox News."
... "The Nevada Democratic Party has canceled an August debate that was
to be co-hosted by Fox News Channel, citing comments by the network's president
rather than an online protest launched by activists and bloggers who believe
the channel is biased." ... ""Comments made last night by Fox News President
Roger Ailes in reference to one of our presidential candidates went too
far. We cannot, as good Democrats, put our party in a position to defend
such comments," state Democratic Party Chairman Tom Collins and Nevada
Sen. Harry Reid wrote in a letter sent Friday to Fox News." ... "Ailes
reportedly made a comment playing on the similarity of Illinois Sen. Barack
Obama's name to Osama Bin Laden." ... "MoveOn.org Civic Action, a network
of liberal activists, called on the state Democratic Party to drop partnership
with Fox, which the group calls "a mouthpiece for the Republican party,"
two weeks ago." ... ""We hope this sets a precedent for all Democrats,
that Fox should be treated as a right-wing misinformation network, not
legitimized as a neutral source of news," Eli Pariser, executive director
of MoveOn.org Civic Action, said in a statement." -By
Kathleen Hennessey -AP
via -LasVegasSun.com
Richard
Shelby - Corporate
- Crime
- Government
- Law
- Politics
- Digital
- Technology
- Online
- Consumer
- 
California
- Alabama
Secret
- US
- 
Iraq
- 
Nuclear
- Government
- Military
- Intelligence
- Internet
- Archive
- History
- Hoekstra
- Michigan
- Roberts
- 
Kansas
- Legislation
- Politics
- "U.S.
Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer."
... "Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public
a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration
did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who had said they
hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers
posed by Saddam Hussein." ... "But in recent weeks, the site has posted
some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed
accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf
war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building
an atom bomb." ... "Last night, the government shut down the Web site after
The New York Times asked about complaints from weapons experts and arms-control
officials. A spokesman for the director of national intelligence said access
to the site had been suspended “pending a review to ensure its content
is appropriate for public viewing.”" ... "Officials of the International
Atomic Energy Agency, fearing that the information could help states like
Iran develop nuclear arms, had privately protested last week to the American
ambassador to the agency, according to European diplomats who spoke on
condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. One diplomat
said the agency’s technical experts “were shocked” at the public disclosures."
... "The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams,
equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts
who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet
and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information
on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well
as the radioactive cores of atom bombs." ... "The director of national
intelligence, John D. Negroponte, had resisted setting up the Web site,
which some intelligence officials felt implicitly raised questions about
the competence and judgment of government analysts. But President Bush
approved the site’s creation after Congressional Republicans proposed legislation
to force the documents’ release." ... "The campaign for the Web site was
led by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative
Peter Hoekstra [Republican] of Michigan. Last November, he and his Senate
counterpart, Pat Roberts [Republican] of Kansas, wrote to Mr. Negroponte,
asking him to post the Iraqi material." (1, 2,
3)
-By William J. Broad with contributions by Scott Shane
-NYTimes
Foley
- 
Hastert
- 
Shimkus
- 
Alexander
- 
Fla
- Ill
- 
La
- 
Ariz
- Gay
- Lawmaker
- Internet
- E-Mail
- Communication
- Messages
- "Lawmaker
Saw Foley Messages In 2000: Page Notified GOP Rep.
Kolbe." ... "A Republican congressman knew of disgraced former representative
Mark Foley's inappropriate Internet exchanges as far back as 2000 and personally
confronted Foley about his communications." ... "A spokeswoman for Rep.
Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz. [Republican-Arizona]) confirmed yesterday that a former
page showed the congressman Internet messages that had made the youth feel
uncomfortable with the direction Foley (R-Fla. [Republican-Florida]) was
taking their e-mail relationship. Last week, when the Foley matter erupted,
a Kolbe staff member suggested to the former page that he take the matter
to the clerk of the House, Karen Haas, said Kolbe's press secretary, Korenna
Cline." ... "The revelation pushes back by at least five years the date
when a member of Congress has acknowledged learning of Foley's behavior
with former pages. A timeline issued by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert
(R-Ill. [Republican-Illinois]) suggested that the first lawmakers to know,
Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill. [Republican-Illinois]), the chairman of the
House Page Board, and Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La. [Republican-Louisiana]),
became aware of "over-friendly" e-mails only last fall. It also expands
the universe of players in the drama beyond members, either in leadership
or on the page board." ... "A source with direct knowledge of Kolbe's involvement
said the messages shared with Kolbe were sexually explicit, and he read
the contents to The Washington Post under the condition that they not be
reprinted." ... "Kolbe, the only openly gay Republican in Congress, is
retiring at the end of the year." -By Jonathan Weisman
with contributions by James V. Grimaldi -WashingtonPost
Foley
- Internet
- Communications
- E-Mail
- Messages
- Florida
- "Three
More Former Pages Accuse Foley of Online Sexual Approaches."
... "Three more former congressional pages have come forward to reveal
what they call "sexual approaches" over the Internet from former [Florida
Republican] Congressman Mark Foley." ... "The pages served in the classes
of 1998, 2000 and 2002. They independently approached ABC News after the
Foley resignation through the Brian
Ross & the Investigative Team's tip line on ABCNews.com. None
wanted their names used because of the sensitive nature of the communications."
... "All three pages described similar instant message and e-mail patterns,
with remarkably similar escalations of provocative questions." ... ""This
was no prank," said one of the three former pages who talked to ABC News
today about his experience with the congressman." -By
Brian Ross, Rhonda Schwartz, and Maddy Sauer
-ABCNEWS.com
Mark
Foley - Computer
- E-Mail
- Messages
- Laws
- Children
- Politics
- Dennis
Hastert - Illinois
- Florida
- Nevada
- California
- Louisiana
- "FBI
looking into Foley computer exchanges." ... "The
FBI is looking at whether former Florida [Republican] Rep. Mark Foley's
computer exchanges with underage House pages broke any laws, an FBI spokesman
said late Sunday." ... "Under fire from Democrats, House Speaker Dennis
Hastert [Illinois Republican] also asked Sunday that [Republican] U.S.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales - and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement
- look into the case." ... "Foley, a Florida Republican, gave no reason
for leaving but said he was "deeply sorry" and resigned Friday after the
subsequent, sexually explicit instant messages were disclosed by ABC News."
... "Earlier Sunday, Democrats in both chambers, Senate Democratic leader
Harry Reid of Nevada and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California,
called for investigations." ... "Hastert's office said Saturday his office
was contacted last fall by a staff member in the office of Louisiana Republican
Rep. Rodney Alexander, where the page once worked. The boy said in an e-mail
to Alexander's office that the computer exchange with Foley "freaked him
out" and was "sick..sick..sick."" -By Lesley Clark
-McClatchy via
-MercuryNews
Secret
- Mark
Foley - Internet
- Messages
- Florida
- Lawmaker
- "Foley's
Behavior No Secret on Capitol Hill: A GOP staff member
told congressional pages to watch out for former Congressman Foley." ...
"It turns out Foley's obsession with 16- and 17-year-old male pages has
been known to Republicans on Capitol Hill for at least five years." ...
"But other than issue a warning, little else seems to have been done about
the congressman." ... "A former page has come forward to tell ABC News
warnings were issued about Foley to the pages in 2001." ... "ABC News has
obtained Internet messages sent by Foley to three different pages after
that warning." ... "Two of them were sent to pages in the 2001-2002 class,
with sexually explicit messages, most too graphic to be broadcast, from
Foley using the screen name Maf54." ... "Former pages tell ABC News the
pages involved with Foley were afraid to offend the powerful Republican
congressman." -By Brian Ross
-ABCNEWS.com
School
- Children
- Internet
- Messaging
- Law
- Politics
- Foley
- Florida-
"FBI
Opens "Preliminary Investigation" of Foley." ...
"The FBI has opened a "preliminary investigation" of disgraced former [Florida
Republican] Congressman Mark Foley over the sexually explicit Internet
messages he sent to congressional pages, all male high school students
under the age of 18." ... "It's possible Foley could be prosecuted under
laws he helped to enact, as the co-chairman of the House Caucus on Missing
and Exploited Children." -By Brian Ross
-ABCNEWS.com
Mark
Foley - Internet
- Messages
- Children
- Mental
Health - Enforcement
- Politics
- Fla
- "Exclusive:
The Sexually Explicit Internet Messages That Led to [Republican] Fla. Rep.
Foley's Resignation." ... "Florida Rep. Mark Foley's
resignation came just hours after ABC News questioned the congressman about
a series of sexually explicit instant messages involving congressional
pages, high school students who are under 18 years of age." ... "In Congress,
Rep. Foley (R-FL) was part of the Republican leadership and the chairman
of the House caucus on missing and exploited children." ... "He crusaded
for tough laws against those who used the Internet for sexual exploitation
of children." ... ""They're sick people; they need mental health counseling,"
Foley said." ... "But, according to several former congressional pages,
the congressman used the Internet to engage in sexually explicit exchanges."
... "They say he used the screen name Maf54 on these messages provided
to ABC News."Another
message:
Maf54:
What
ya wearing?
Teen:
tshirt
and shorts
Maf54:
Love
to slip them off of you.
And
this one:
Maf54:
Do
I make you a little horny?
Teen:
A little.
Maf54:
Cool.
Hackers
- Web
- Telecommunications
- Consumer
- Business
- "Hackers
hit AT&T, steal users' info." ... "AT&T Inc.
said hackers compromised its Web site last weekend, obtaining records and
credit card information of up to 19,000 customers." ... "The country's
largest telecommunications operator said Tuesday that hackers targeted
a store on the company's Web site where customers purchased DSL equipment.
The attack was discovered "within hours," the company said, prompting a
shutdown of the store that was still in effect Tuesday." ... ""We are committed
to both protecting our customers' privacy and to weeding out and punishing
the violators," said Priscilla Hill-Ardoin, chief privacy officer at AT&T."
-By Ryan Kim -SFGate.com
Secret
- US
- International
- Government
- Terrorism- Intelligence
- Law
- Free
Speech - Privacy
- Telephone
- Internet
- Civil
Righs - Journalists
- Educators
- Michigan
- "NSA
eavesdropping program ruled unconstitutional: Justice
Department says it will appeal judge's decision." ... "A federal judge
on Thursday ruled that the U.S. government's domestic eavesdropping program
is unconstitutional and ordered it ended immediately." ... "The Justice
Department said it would appeal the ruling, saying the program was "a critical
tool that ensures we have in place an early warning system to detect and
prevent a terrorist attack."" ... "In a 44-page memorandum and order, U.S.
District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, -- who is based in Detroit, Michigan
-- struck down the National Security Agency's program, which she said violates
the rights to free speech and privacy. (Read
the complete ruling -- PDF)" ... "The defendants "are permanently enjoined
from directly or indirectly utilizing the Terrorist Surveillance Program
(TSP) in any way, including, but not limited to, conducting warrantless
wiretaps of telephone and Internet communications, in contravention of
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Title III," she wrote." ...
"She further declared that the program "violates the separation of powers
doctrine, the Administrative Procedures Act, the First and Fourth amendments
to the United States Constitution, the FISA and Title III."" ... "She went
on to say that "the president of the United States ... has undisputedly
violated the Fourth in failing to procure judicial orders."" ... "The lawsuit,
filed January 17 by civil rights organizations, lawyers, journalists and
educators, "challenges the constitutionality of a secret government program
to intercept vast quantities of the international telephone and Internet
communications of innocent Americans without court approval."" -With
contributions by Bill Mears and Andrea Koppel
-CNN
Connecticut
- Internet
- Election
2006 - Politics
- "Internet,
activists help topple prominent US Democrat." ...
"Fueled by opposition to the Iraq war and anger at President Bush, liberal
grass-roots and Internet activists on Wednesday claimed their most significant
political victory -- the defeat of Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman." ...
"The three-term senator from Connecticut was repudiated on Tuesday by voters
from his own party who chose Ned Lamont -- a relative unknown with a fierce
anti-war message -- to represent Democrats in the November election." ...
""The winner is people-powered politics," declared the Daily Kos Web site,
a sentiment that echoed throughout the liberal blogosphere." -By
Patricia Wilson -Reuters
via -WashingtonPost
DCI
- Marketing
- 
Oil
- Corporation
- Politics
- Global
- 
Climate
- Internet
- Computer- 
Entertainment
-
- 
Environment
- 
Al
Gore - "Al
Gore YouTube Spoof Not So Amateurish: Republican
PR [public relations] Firm Said to Be Behind 'Inconvenient Truth' Spoof."
... "A tiny little movie making fun of Al Gore, supposedly made by an amateur
filmmaker, recently appeared on the popular Web site YouTube.com." ...
"At first blush, the spoof seemed like a scrappy little homemade film poking
fun at Gore and his anti-global warming crusade." ... "The film actually
came from a slick Republican public relations firm called DCI, which just
happens to have oil giant Exxon as a client." ... "Public relations firms
have long used computer technology to create bogus grassroots campaigns,
which are called "Astroturf."" ... "Now these firms are being hired to
push illusions on the Internet to create the false impression of real people
blogging, e-mailing and making films. " (1, 2)
-By Jake Tapper and Max Culhane
-ABCNEWS.com
DCI
- Marketing
- 
Psychology
- Oil
- Corporation
- Politics
- Opinion
- Internet
- Video
- California
- Entertainment
- Media
- 
Search
Engine - Computer
- Communications
- EMail
- Environmental
- Science
- Global
- Climate
- Al
Gore - "Where
did that video spoofing Gore's film come from?" ...
"Everyone knows Al Gore stars in the global warming documentary "An Inconvenient
Truth." But who created "Al Gore's Penguin Army," a two-minute video now
playing on YouTube.com?" ... "Like other videos on the popular YouTube
site, it has a home-made, humorous quality. The video's maker is listed
as "Toutsmith," a 29-year-old who identifies himself as being from Beverly
Hills [California] in an Internet profile." ... "In an email exchange with
The Wall Street Journal, Toutsmith didn't answer when asked who he was
or why he made the video, which has just over 59,000 views on YouTube.
However, computer routing information contained in an email sent from Toutsmith's
Yahoo account indicate it didn't come from an amateur working out of his
basement." ... "Instead, the email originated from a computer registered
to DCI Group, a Washington, D.C., public relations and lobbying firm whose
clients include oil company Exxon Mobil Corp [Corporation]." ... "The anti-Gore
video represents a less well-known side of YouTube. As its popularity has
exploded, the public video-sharing site has drawn marketers looking to
build buzz for new music releases and summer blockbusters. Now, it's being
tapped by political operatives, public relations experts and ad agencies
to sway opinions." ... "DCI is no stranger to the debate over global warming.
Partly through Tech Central Station, an opinion Web site it operates, DCI
has sought to raise doubts about the science of global warming and about
Mr. Gore's film, placing skeptical scientists on talk-radio shows and paying
them to write editorials." ... "Internet videos could prove particularly
potent, because they may influence watchers in ways they don't realize.
Nancy Snow, a communications professor at California State University,
Fullerton, viewed the penguin video and calls it a lesson in "Propaganda
101." It contains no factual information, but presents a highly negative
image of the former vice president, she says. The purpose of such images
is to harden the views of those who already view Mr. Gore negatively, Dr.
Snow says." ... "Traffic to the penguin video, first posted on YouTube.com
in May, got a boost from prominently placed sponsored links that appeared
on the Google search engine when users typed in "Al Gore" or "Global Warming."
The ads, which didn't indicate who had paid for them, were removed shortly
after The Wall Street Journal contacted DCI Group on Tuesday." -By
Antonio Regalado and Dionne Searcey with contributions by Jeffrey Ball
-WSJ.com via -Post-Gazette.com
Free
Speech - Terrorism
- Internet
- Media
- Privacy
- Politics
- "The
thug and intimidation tactics of the Far Right go mainstream."
... "One of the favorite tactics used by such groups is to find the home
address and telephone number of the latest enemy and then publish
it on the Internet, accompanied by impassioned condemnations of that
person as a Grave Enemy, a race traitor, someone who threatens all that
is good in the world. A handful of the most extremist pro-life groups have
used the same tactic. It has happened in the past that those who were
the target of these sorts of demonization campaigns that included publication
of their home address were attacked and even killed." ... "But these intimidation
tactics work even when nothing happens. Indeed, these groups often publish
the enemy's home address along with some cursory caveat that they are not
encouraging violence. The real objective is the same one shared by all
terrorists -- to place the person in paralyzing fear. The goal is to force
the individual, as they lay in bed at night, to be preoccupied with worry
that there is some deranged individual who read one of the websites identifying
them as the enemy and which provided their address and who believes that
they can strike some blow for their Just Cause by visiting their home and
harming or killing them. The fear that they are vulnerable in their own
home lurks so prominently and relentlessly in a person's mind that it can
be as effective as a physical attack in punishing someone or intimidating
them." ... "This thuggish tactic of intimidation -- publicly railing against
someone's grave crimes and then publishing their home address -- has been
creeping out of the most extremist precincts on the Right and is becoming
increasingly common among mainstream right-wing individuals and organizations."
US
- Iraq
- Terrorism
- Religion
- Internet
- Military
- Politics
- "Agencies:
Homegrown Radicals Inside U.S.." ... "U.S. counterterrorism
officials say they are uncovering homegrown Islamic radicals inside the
United States who lack formal ties to al-Qaida and operate independently."
... "Those independent qualities - combined with the radicals' ability
to organize and plot on the Internet - make them particularly difficult
to disrupt, retired Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, director of the National
Counterterrorism Center, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday."
... "The hearing came less than a week after the U.S. military and intelligence
agencies killed one of the world's top terror leaders in an airstrike,
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of al-Qaida in Iraq." ... "Redd
said the merger between al-Zarqawi's group and al-Qaida's central organization
gives terror leaders a more diverse pool of "battle-hardened" operatives
from which to draw. Intelligence officials, he said, are also seeing signs
that al-Zarqawi's group was hatching plots outside Iraq. But he did not
elaborate." -By Katherine Shrader
-AP via -Forbes
Internet
- Phone
- Privacy
- Politics
- Electronic
- Technology
- Police
- "Appeals
court backs Bush on wiretaps." ... "A federal appeals
court sided with the Bush administration Friday on an electronic surveillance
issue, making it easier to tap into Internet phone calls and broadband
transmissions." ... "The court ruled 2-1 in favor of the Federal Communications
Commission, which says equipment using the new technologies must be able
to accommodate police wiretaps under the 1994 Communications Assistance
for Law Enforcement Act, known as CALEA." ... "Judge David Sentelle called
the agency's reading of the law a reasonable interpretation. In dissent,
Judge Harry Edwards said the FCC gutted an exemption for information services
that he said covered the Internet and broadband." ... "The FCC "apparently
forgot to read the words of the statute," Edwards wrote."
-AP via -USATODAY
E-Mail
- Searches
- Law
- History
- Internet
- Telecom
- Business
- Law
Enforcement - Terrorism
- "U.S.
asks Internet firms to save data." ... "Top law enforcement
officials have asked leading Internet companies to keep histories of the
activities of Web users for up to two years to assist in criminal investigations
of child pornography and terrorism, the Justice Department said Wednesday."
... "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller
outlined their request to executives from Google, Microsoft, AOL, Comcast,
Verizon and others Friday in a private meeting at the Justice Department.
The department has scheduled more discussions as early as Friday." ...
"It wants records such as lists of e-mail traffic and Web searches, he
[Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse] said." -By
Jon Swartz and Kevin Johnson with contributions by William M. Welch
-USATODAY
China
- Free
Speech - Education
- Computer
- Internet
- Politics
- Police
- "As
Chinese Students Go Online, Little Sister Is Watching."
... "For several hours each week she [sophomore Hu Yingying of Shanghai
Normal University] repairs to a little-known on-campus office crammed with
computers, where she logs in unsuspected by other students to help police
her school's Internet forums." ... "Once online, following suggestions
from professors or older students, she introduces politically correct or
innocuous themes for discussion." ... "Politics, even school politics,
is banned on university bulletin boards like these. Ms. Hu says she and
her fellow moderators try to steer what they consider negative conversations
in a positive direction with well-placed comments of their own. Anything
they deem offensive, she says, they report to the school's Web master for
deletion." ... "Part traffic cop, part informer, part discussion moderator
— and all without the knowledge of her fellow students — Ms. Hu is a small
part of a huge national effort to sanitize the Internet. For years China
has had its Internet police, reportedly as many as 50,000 state agents
who troll online, blocking Web sites, erasing commentary and arresting
people for what is deemed anti-Communist Party or antisocial speech." ...
"But Ms. Hu, one of 500 students at her university's newly bolstered, student-run
Internet monitoring group, is a cog in a different kind of force, an ostensibly
all-volunteer one that the Chinese government is mobilizing to help it
manage the monumental task of censoring the Web." (1, 2)
-By Howard W. French -NYTimes
World
- Net
- Media
- Free
Speech - "Net
censorship spreads worldwide." ... "Repressive regimes
are taking full advantage of the net's ability to censor and stifle reform
and debate, reveals a report." ... "Written by the Reporters Without Borders
(RSF) pressure group the report highlights the ways governments threaten
the freedom of the press." ... "The report has a section dedicated to the
internet and the growing roster of nations censoring online life." ...
"This censorship is practised on every continent on Earth, said the report."
-By Mark Ward -BBC
/News
Telecommunications
- Business
- Law
- Consumer
- Internet
- Television
- "Panel
Vote Shows Rift Over `Net Neutrality': A House committee
rejects a bid to ban extra charges for faster, more reliable delivery of
data." ... "A fight in a House committee about online tolls offered a preview
Wednesday of the larger battle brewing over the future of the Internet
as Congress overhauls telecommunications rules for the first time in a
decade." ... "Despite lobbying from online giants such as Google Inc. and
Yahoo Inc., the House Energy and Commerce Committee rejected an amendment
that would prohibit the owners of Internet networks from charging extra
for preferential treatment of data." ... "Uncertainty over so-called Internet
neutrality threatens to derail broader efforts to update the Telecommunications
Act of 1996, which governs phones and cable television as well as Internet
access." -By Jim Puzzanghera
-LAtimes
Telecom
- Business
- Law
- Consumer
- Internet
- 
Massachusetts
- 
Texas
- "Democrats
lose House vote on Net neutrality: A hotly contested
Democratic bid to enshrine extensive Net neutrality regulations in the
law books failed Wednesday in the U.S. House of Representatives." ... "By
a 34-22 vote, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee rejected
a Democratic-backed Net neutrality amendment [by Massachusetts Rep. Ed
Markey] that also enjoyed support from Internet and software companies
including Microsoft, Amazon.com and Google." ... "Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas
Republican and committee chairman, pressured his fellow GOP members to
vote against Markey's amendment--even going so far as to remind them that
he opposed it and to call in wayward colleagues who had strayed out into
the hallway." ... "Because the committee has a GOP majority, Markey's amendment
never had a chance of passing unless some Republicans could be convinced
to defect from the party line." ... "Democrats could try again to amend
the bill on the House floor, but that tactic only works if the Republican
leadership agrees to permit it, which seems unlikely at this point." (1,
2)
-By Declan McCullagh -CNET
/News
Internet
- Business
- Telecommunications
- Legislation
- Intel
- 
Maine
- 
ND
- "Intel
throws support to Net neutrality push." ... "Intel
Corp. has waded into the debate over the future of the Internet, joining
major Web companies in supporting legislation that would force Internet
service providers to treat all traffic equally." ... "The House Committee
on Energy and Commerce approved a telecommunications bill Wednesday that
did not contain the kind of safeguard the "net neutrality" proponents are
seeking." ... "With the defeat in the House, attention on the issue is
expected to shift to the Senate, where Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and
Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., plan to introduce a net neutrality bill."
-AP via -MSNBC
Telecom
- Internet
- Business
- Law
- "Telecoms
groups win ‘net neutrality’ battle in Congress."
... "Telecommunications and cable companies scored a victory in the US
Congress on Wednesday when a key House committee defeated plans for strict
price controls on the high-speed networks that will form the next generation
of internet connectivity." ... "The House energy and commerce committee
voted 34-22 on Wednesday to defeat a Democrat-sponsored amendment that
would have prevented AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from charging more for
priority access to the high-speed networks of the future. Despite the defeat,
the debate on “net neutrality” – the principle that all content providers
should be treated equally on the internet – is far from over, say lobbyists,
which pits big telecoms companies against giants of the internet content
world, such as Google, Yahoo and eBay." -By Patti
Waldmeir and Jenny Johnson -FT.com
Consumer
- Internet
- Telecommunications
- Companies
- Law
- Massachusetts
- Microsoft
- Intel
- "Net
Neutrality Debate Heats Up: As a House committee
gears up to vote on whether to require the FCC to enforce the notion of
equal Internet access for all parties, the blogosphere is weighing in."
... "Congress continued to debate network neutrality Wednesday as a group
opposing companies' push for tiered access gained momentum." ... "At the
same time, the SavetheInternet.com
Coalition announced that more than 250,000 people signed their petition
calling for protection of net neutrality. The coalition, which joins libertarians
and gun owners with liberal and business groups, gathered the signatures
supporting Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Ed
Markey's amendment in less than a week." ... ""Both sides of the political
blogosphere have galvanized behind this political issue – with nearly 500
blogs linking to www.SavetheInternet.com within days," SavetheInternet.com
announced." ... "The AARP, Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America,
Free Press, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, MoveOn.org, Gun Owners
of America, MySpace.com and Vint Cerf are among those claiming that the
Internet's level playing field is threatened." ... "Meanwhile, opposition
continued to grow this week as dontmesswiththenet.com
launched, while Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Intel
President and CEO Paul Otellini and IAC/InternActiveCorp. Chairman and
CEO joined the fight. They sent a letter to several representatives stating
that net neutrality has supported innovation and empowered people and must
be protected." -By K.C. Jones -InformationWeek
Internet
- Media
- Opinion
- "Bloggers
fanning the controversy over Rumsfeld: Pentagon studies
proliferation of military Web logs." ... "The war of words between Secretary
of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and former generals has spread to the lower
ranks as soldiers, recent war vets, and Pentagon civilians alike use a
growing number of Web logs on the Internet to sound off on their current
and former bosses." ... "Soldiers can be dismissed or sentenced to one
year in prison for uttering ''contemptuous words" about the commander in
chief and other government leaders, but there is no penalty for criticizing
them. Still, public criticism is unusual in the military." ... "Web logs
have provided a unique window into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, allowing
troops to bypass the mainstream media to detail their exploits. But these
so-called milblogs are increasingly serving as forums for policy debates,
such as the effectiveness of the war strategy or how to deal with Iran's
nuclear program." ... "There are hundreds of milblogs, and the Pentagon,
which has cautiously supported some of them but also has deep concerns
about the ability to control them, recently ordered a top level advisory
panel to study the issue." -By Bryan Bender
-BostonGlobe
Kansas
- School
- Web
- "5
Kan. students arrested in alleged plot." ... "Five
teenage boys fully intended to go on a shooting spree at their high school
but were stopped after one of them discussed the plot on a Web site, law
enforcement and school officials said." ... "The boys, ranging in age from
16 to 18, were arrested Thursday, the anniversary of the Columbine massacre,
just hours before they planned to shoot fellow students and school employees,
authorities said." ... "Apparently, they had been plotting since the beginning
of the school year. [Cherokee County Sheriff Steve] Norman said school
officials began investigating Tuesday after learning a threatening message
had been posted on MySpace.com." -By Marcus Kabel
with contributions by Heather Hollingsworth -AP
via -SeattlePI.NWsource
US
- Iraq
- 
Turkey
- California
- 2006
Election - Terrorism
- Web
- Photo
- Media
- "Candidate
admits 'stupid' Web error: Conservative [Republican
Howard Kaloogian] uses photo of Turkey, calls it Baghdad." ... "A leading
conservative California congressional candidate who has made support for
the war in Iraq a central issue acknowledged Wednesday that a campaign
Web site photo -- billed as a peaceful street scene taken during his recent
trip to Baghdad [Iraq] -- was actually photographed in Turkey." ... "The
campaign posted the photo from Kaloogian's July trip to Iraq, a mission
dubbed the "Truth Tour" and organized to "tell the American people about
the accomplishments (troops) are making in Operation Iraqi Freedom and
the fight against terrorism,'' according to the tax-exempt group Move America
Forward, a conservative grassroots organization Kaloogian helped found."
... "The caption read that "we took this photo of downtown Baghdad while
we were in Iraq'' which is "much more calm and stable than what many people
believe it to be. But, each day the news media finds any violence occurring
in the country and screams and shouts about it -- in part because many
journalists are opposed to the U.S. effort to fight terrorism.''" ... "But
bloggers on the popular liberal Daily Kos Web site revealed the photo depicted
a street scene in Turkey." -By Carla Marinucci
-SFGate.com
US
- Iraq
- Turkey
- California
- 2006
Election - Web
- Photo
- Media
- "Photo
by candidate not taken in Baghdad." ... "For weeks,
[California Republican Howard] Kaloogian's campaign Web site featured a
photo of a peaceful city block to help make his case that things are going
well in Iraq." ... "“We took this photo of Baghdad while we were in Iraq,”
the caption accompanying the photo read. “Iraq (including Baghdad) is much
more calm and stable than what many people believe it to be.”" ... "There
was one problem with the photo. It wasn't Baghdad. It was a suburb of Istanbul,
Turkey. " ... "Kaloogian's explanation that it was an innocent mix-up isn't
being bought by bloggers across the nation who uncovered the bogus photo."
... "Some of them believe he's guilty of what he's accused the mainstream
media of doing: slanting the news to fit his own beliefs." -By
Bill Ainsworth -SignOnSanDiego.com
US
- Global
- 
Jobs
- Economy
- 
Accountants
- Computer
- Web
- "Will
Your Job Survive?" ... "In the new global order,
[Princeton University economist Alan] Blinder writes, not just manufacturing
jobs but a large number of service jobs will be performed in cheaper climes.
Indeed, only hands-on or face-to-face services look safe. "Janitors and
crane operators are probably immune to foreign competition," Blinder writes,
"accountants and computer programmers are not."" ... "There follow some
back-of-the-envelope calculations as Blinder totes up the number of jobs
in tradable and non-tradable sectors. Then comes his (necessarily imprecise)
bottom line: "The total number of current U.S. service-sector jobs that
will be susceptible to offshoring in the electronic future is two to three
times the total number of current manufacturing jobs (which is about 14
million)." As Blinder believes that all those manufacturing jobs are offshorable,
too, the grand total of American jobs that could be bound for Bangalore
or Bangladesh is somewhere between 42 million and 56 million." -By
Harold Meyerson -WashingtonPost
Ralph
Reed- Jack
Abramoff
- EMails
- Internet
- Law
- Politics
- Georgia
- Connecticut
- "E-mails
undermine Reed claim." ... "[Georgia Republican lieutenant
governor candidate] Ralph Reed has said he didn't know it until last year,
but emails suggest he was informed that eLot — a firm then in the online
lottery business — was behind his effort to fend off a ban against internet
gambling in 2000." ... "The e-mails passed between Reed and Jack Abramoff,
the now disgraced Washington lobbyist. Abramoff was lobbying for eLot Inc.
of Connecticut, parent company of eLottery Inc., against a bill in Congress
that would have banned most online betting. ELottery opposed the bill because
it wanted to help states sell tickets online." ... "Reed, a lifelong opponent
of gambling, said last year that he did not know in 2000 he was actually
working on behalf of eLottery." ... "But e-mails obtained by The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution show Reed was offered the name of the company at the
beginning of his involvement in the campaign, in May 2000. The e-mails
emerged as dozens of federal investigators have increased their focus on
events surrounding the defeat of the Internet gaming ban." -By
Jim Galloway-AJC
Language
- Computer
- Internet
- 
Radio
- Media
- "`Podcast'
is lexicon's Word of the Year." ... "The editors
of the New Oxford American Dictionary have validated the sudden spread
of podcasting by naming "podcast" the Word of the Year for 2005." ... ""Podcast,"
defined as "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program,
made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player,"
will be added to the next edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary."
... "The word originated as a play on the word "broadcast" using the name
of Apple's popular handheld digital music player, the iPod." -By
Nathan Bierma -ChicagoTribune
NY
- Internet
- Messaging
- Telecommunications
- 
Patent- Search
Engine - Business
- "Google
Talk faces patent lawsuit." ... "A New York company
[Rates Technology (RTI)] is suing Google for patent infringement over the
voice-over-Internet portion of its Google Talk instant messaging and voice
chat program." ... "It alleges infringement on two of its patents for minimizing
the cost of long-distance calls using the Internet."" ... "RTI President
Jerry Weinberger returned a call seeking comment on Thursday and said his
firm also has sued Vonage and Cablevision over patent infringement." ...
""When a VOIP call can be transferred to the regular PSTN (telephone network),
the switching of that call infringes our patents," Weinberger said." -By
Elinor Mills -CNET
/News
Computer
- Internet
- Media
- Entertainment
- "Yahoo
Streams Two CBS Comedies: The shows will be available
for a week; this is the first time the Web portal has streamed a CBS show
in its entirety." ... "Yahoo Inc. is streaming this week CBS comedies "Two
And A Half Men" and "How I Met Your Mother," the latest example of the
merger of TV and the Internet." ... "The Yahoo move follows the movement
of TV shows to the Web. America Online Inc., a unit of Time Warner Inc.,
plans to launch early next year an online TV network that will stream classic
TV shows, such as "Welcome Back Kotter," "Growing Pains," and "Chico And
The Man." The showings are the result of a partnership with Warner Bros."
... "Another example of the trend is NBC and ABC making shows available
for download to Apple Computer Inc.'s video iPod. The shows are offered
through Apple's online music store iTunes." -By Antone
Gonsalves -InformationWeek
Government
- Terrorism
- Law
Enforcement - Law
- Telecommunications
- Business
- Internet
- Privacy
- Politics
- "Spy
Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report."
... "The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes
of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United
States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved
after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity,
according to current and former government officials." ... "The volume
of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks,
without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has
acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly
into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they
said." ... "As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic
surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of
American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams
of domestic and international communications, the officials said." ...
"The government's collection and analysis of phone and Internet traffic
have raised questions among some law enforcement and judicial officials
familiar with the program." -By Eric Lichtblau and
James Risen
(1,
2)
-NYTimes
Washington
- Microsoft
- TV
- Web
- Business-
"NBC
Universal Buys Control of MSNBC From Microsoft (Update3)."
... "NBC Universal bought a controlling interest in the MSNBC cable news
television channel it created with Microsoft Corp. in 1996, with an option
of getting full ownership in two years." ... "NBC Universal increased its
stake in MSNBC to 82 percent from 50 percent in a cash transaction, Microsoft
spokesman Adam Sohn said today, declining to comment further. Redmond,
Washington-based Microsoft and General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal will
continue to own equal parts in the MSNBC.com Web site." -By
Alex Armitage -Bloomberg
IP
- Microsoft
- Wireless
- EMail
- Computer
- Net
- Business
- Texas
- "Microsoft
Sued Over Mobile E-Mail Patents: Mobile E-mail vendor
Visto has sued Microsoft, claiming Windows Mobile violates its patents.
Visto also teamed with NTL, which sued RIM." ... "Mobile e-mail technology
vendor Visto Thursday claimed that Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0 platform
violates its patents and has signed a licensing agreement with NTP, which
has sued Research In Motion for alleged patent violations." ... "In addition,
NTP has acquired an equity stake in Visto, the company said in a statement."
... "Visto said in a statement that it has filed a patent infringement
lawsuit against Microsoft in U.S. District Court in Texas that covers three
specific patents owned by Visto. The complaint asks the court to prohibit
Microsoft from improperly using Visto's intellectual property and asks
for compensation." -MobilePipeline.com
via -InformationWeek
Canada
- US
- World
- Drugs
- Internet
- Privacy
- "Meth
addicts' other habit: Online theft." ... "Hot on
the trail of identity thieves, veteran [Alberta, Canada] Edmonton Police
Service detectives Al Vonkeman and Bob Gauthier last winter hustled to
a local motel, a cinder-block establishment where rooms rent by the hour."
... "Inside Room 24 the detectives found meth pipes, stolen credit cards,
notebooks with handwritten notations about fraudulent transactions and
printouts of stolen identity data." ... "Evidence in the motel room would
ultimately lead them to a much bigger revelation: The Edmonton ring had
gone global." ... "It no longer relied solely on dumpster-diving, mailbox-pilfering
street addicts to supply stolen credit cards, checks and account statements,
the grist for local thefts. Instead, it had advanced to complex joint ventures,
conducted over the Internet, in partnership with organized cybercrime rings
outside the country." ... "What's happening in Edmonton is happening to
one degree or another in communities across the USA and Canada — anywhere
meth addicts are engaging in identity theft and can get on the Internet,
say police, federal law enforcement officials and Internet security experts."
-By Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz
-USATODAY
Internet
- Media
- "AOL
founder calls for breakup of Time Warner: Merger
weighed online company down, Case says." ... "Steve Case, architect of
the $112 billion merger of Time Warner Inc. and America Online, joined
Carl Icahn this week in pressing for a breakup of the company." ... "Case,
who holds about $250 million of Time Warner shares, wrote that he hasn't
spoken with Icahn or his advisers." -Bloomberg
via -SeattlePI.NWsource
Web
- Business
- Microsoft
- "Adobe
merger may help it fend off Microsoft." ... "Adobe
Systems and Macromedia spent more than a decade as fierce rivals in the
software market. Now they are hoping that by banding together they can
be better positioned to face increasingly aggressive competition from Microsoft."
... "Early this month, Adobe completed its $3.4 billion acquisition of
Macromedia, giving it control of Flash, Macromedia's crown jewel, a software
tool for developing multimedia applications for the Web. The move cements
Adobe's dominant position in the market for electronic document management
and helps round out its collection of software for art directors, Web designers
and video producers." -By Laurie J. Flynn
-NYTimes via -SeattlePI.NWsource
Microsoft
- IM-Messaging
- Telecom
- Computer
- Business
- "Microsoft,
MCI team on Net phone service: Initial offering to
allow only outbound calls from PC." ... "The agreement, announced late
Monday, gives the Redmond [Washington] company a bigger stake in the consumer
segment of the burgeoning online phone business. But for now, at least,
Microsoft says it will offer only outbound calls from PCs to regular phones
-- unlike some rivals that will offer the ability to receive calls on a
PC from a phone, as well." ... "The decision to partner with a telecom
company could give Microsoft an important ally as it moves further into
the online voice market. The company sees the service as a "natural extension"
of the free PC-to-PC voice and video features already offered as part of
its instant-messaging program, said Brian Arbogast, an MSN corporate vice
president." -By Todd Bishop
-SeattlePI.NWsource
Telecommunications
- Computer
- Business
- "Companies
Embracing Skype—With Reservations." ... "With more
than 13 million users worldwide [other sources cite 54 million users],
Skype has quickly become the Internet's favorite free peer-to-peer voice-over-IP
application." ... "Like most grass-roots Internet technologies, Skype (developed
by Skype Technologies S.A., in Luxembourg), started as a hobbyist tool
that soon began to take root in the business market. The company says that
almost half of its customers are now using Skype for business communications."
... "Currently, PC-to-PC calls, aka Skype-to-Skype calls, are free. Skype
calls that cross the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) to reach
a land-line or mobile phone must use the SkypeOut service. The company
charges for SkypeOut: a few cents per minute in addition to the cost of
terminating the call—a cost that can increase dramatically if the receiving
party is international, on a mobile phone or both." (1, 2)
-By David Spark -eWEEK
IM-Messaging
- Telecom
- Computer
- Business
- "Yahoo
to offer cheap PC-to-phone calls." ... "Yahoo Inc.
(YHOO.O: Quote,
Profile,
Research)
said the company plans to allow computer users to make and receive calls
from phones at rates that undercut eBay-owned (EBAY.O: Quote,
Profile,
Research)
rival Skype and are significantly below traditional phone companies." ...
"Yahoo said on Wednesday a new version of its Yahoo Messenger text, voice
and video communications software to be introduced in the next few days
will include "Phone Out," with low per-minute charges for calls from computers
to phones, and "Phone In," a low-cost subscription service for phone callers
to call computer users." ... "Blair Levin, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus
and a former staff member of the Federal Communications Commission, said
in a report to investors that Yahoo's move is part of a broad and growing
challenge to traditional telecommunications carriers." -By
Eric Auchard -Reuters
Music
- Entertainment
- Business
- Secret
- Privacy
- Computer
- Web- Hacking
- "New
security flaw vexes Sony BMG piracy battle: Expert
says patch makes problem worse." ... "Sony BMG Music Entertainment has
acknowledged a new security problem affecting nearly 6 million of its CDs,
and a Princeton University computer expert said yesterday that a patch
the company designed to fix the problem may only make things worse." ...
"The problems for the company began last month, when computer programmer
Matt Russinovich found that Sony BMG was shipping many of its music discs
with a program called XCP." ... "XCP was designed to limit the number of
times a user could copy the tunes on the disc, and to ensure that these
copies could not be played on other computers. But the software also concealed
itself on users' computers and was extremely difficult to remove. In addition,
XCP secretly sent information about users' listening habits over the Internet
to Sony BMG." -By Hiawatha Bray
-Boston/Globe
TV
- Computer
- Business
- "Apple
video inks deal with NBC." ... "Apple Computer [...]
said Tuesday it formed a partnership with NBC Universal to offer new primetime,
cable, late-night and classic TV shows, such as "The Tonight Show with
Jay Leno" on the iTunes Music Store." ... "When Apple originally launched
the downloading of TV shows in October, its first partner was Walt Disney's
ABC, and it had 2,000 videos. With the NBC deal, Apple iTunes Music store
now has 3,000 music videos, Pixar short films and a variety of TV shows
that consumers can buy for $1.99 each." -By Bambi
Francisco -MarketWatch
Christmas
- Plants
- Business
- "We’re
buying trees via Internet, catalog." ... "A growing
number of American families are buying real Christmas trees via the Internet
or by mail order — this year, an estimated 330,000 people will make their
tree selections after gazing at computer screens or paging through catalogs,
the National Christmas Tree Association says." ... "That’s barely a blip
on the holiday radar when compared with the 27.1 million real Christmas
trees sold last year at chain stores, through nonprofit groups, from retail
lots, harvested for a price from choose-and-cut farms or by permit from
public lands." -By Dean Fosdick
-AP via -QCTimes
North
Carolina - 2004
Election - Computer
- Web
- Law
- "North
Carolina defends e-voting certifications." ... "It
has been a turbulent week for electronic voting systems in North Carolina."
... "Watchdog groups say the state "illegally" certified systems built
by two e-voting vendors just days after one admitted it couldn't meet stringent
new laws about disclosing its source code. Meanwhile, a voting-systems
manager defended the decision to award the contracts." ... "The rules were
aligned with actions taken this summer by the state legislature, which
passed changes to election laws that set new standards for e-voting machines
and decertified all the state's existing systems. Those changes came in
response to glitches encountered by one of the state's counties during
the 2004 presidential elections, resulting in the
loss of more than 4,500 votes." -By Anne Broache
-CNET
/News
Illinois
- Web
- Business
- Consumer
- "Lawsuit:
AOL cheats customers with illegal billing." ... "A
lawsuit seeking to potentially cover hundreds of thousands of America Online
subscribers accuses the Time Warner (TWX)
unit of illegally billing customers by creating secondary accounts for
them without their consent." ... "The lawsuit, filed last month in [Illinois']
St. Clair County Circuit Court on behalf of 10 AOL customers in six states
says the company confused and deceived customers about the charges, stalled
them from canceling unauthorized accounts and refused to return questioned
fees." -AP
via -USATODAY
TV
- Entertainment
- Advertising
- Market
- "AOL
Launching Online Video Of TV's Favorite Oldies."
... "America Online Inc. and Warner Bros. said Monday they plan to launch
early next year an online TV network that will bring back favorites from
TV's past, including "Welcome Back Kotter," "Growing Pains," "Chico And
The Man," and "Kung Fu."" ... "The partnership between the two divisions
of Time Warner Inc. is another example of how the Internet is changing
television by offering an additional distribution channel that's also tied
to the growing online advertising market, which JupierResearch says is
expected to double by 2010 to $18.9 billion from $9.3 billion last year."
-By Antone Gonsalves -TechWeb
via -InformationWeek
Hurricane
Katrina - Web
- "Fake
Katrina Charities Prompt Crackdowns: Federal, State
Officials File Charges." ... "Concerned that the Gulf Coast hurricanes
are spawning an unprecedented number of bogus appeals to help victims,
law enforcement officials and charities have launched aggressive efforts
to prosecute fraud." ... "State and federal officials have filed charges
in at lease four cases involving fraudulent appeals. They expect that number
to rise sharply in the coming weeks as investigators examine thousands
of suspicious fundraising Web sites, "phishing" schemes that steal financial
information from donors and people falsely claiming to be raising money
for hurricane funds." -By Jacqueline L. Salmon-WashingtonPost
US
- Government
- 
UN
- World
- Computer
- Telecommunications
- "U.S.
insists on keeping control of Web." ... "A senior
U.S. official rejected calls on Thursday for a U.N. body to take over control
of the main computers that direct traffic on the Internet, reiterating
U.S. intentions to keep its historical role as the medium's principal overseer."
... "In 1998, the U.S. Commerce Department selected ICANN to oversees the
Internet's master directories, which tell Web browsers and e-mail programs
how to direct traffic. Internet users around the world interact with them
everyday, likely without knowing it." ... "Although ICANN is a private
organization with international board members, Commerce ultimately retains
veto power." -AP
via -BusinessWeek
Computer
- Telecom
- Business
- "eBay
to acquire Skype for $2.6 billion." ... "Online auction
site eBay Inc. has agreed to acquire Internet telephony company Skype Technologies
SA for US$2.6 billion, the companies announced Monday." ... "The deal will
help eBay move into new business areas while allowing Skype to expand the
customer base for its VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) services, the
companies said." ... "For instance, in addition to its current transaction-based
fees, eBay could allow deals to be monetized on a pay-per-call basis through
Skype. And for its part, Skype could make it much easier for customers
to pay for its fee-based services through PayPal Inc., the online payment
service owned by eBay." ... "Skype currently has 54 million members in
225 countries and territories and is adding 150,000 new users each day."
-By John Blau -IDG.net
via -Macworld.com
Telecommunications
-
- "EBay
to pay up to $4 billion for Skype: Deal for Net-based
phone firm to trim earnings into 2006." ... "EBay Inc., the top online
auctioneer, said Monday that it agreed to pay up to $4.1 billion for Internet-phone
upstart Skype Technologies SA, an expensive bet to enter a crowded market
and improve communication for eBay users." ... "Under the terms of the
deal, reports of which first surfaced last week, eBay initially will pay
$2.6 billion -- half in cash and the rest in stock. The company could pay
up to an additional $1.5 billion if Skype's business meets certain performance
incentives." -By Jeffry Bartash & John Shinal
-MarketWatch
NY
- Eliot
Spitzer -
-
- "AOL
pays $1.25 million to settle cancellation complaint."
... "America Online, the world's largest Internet service provider, will
pay $1.25 million in penalties and change some customer-service practices
to settle an investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer."
... "About 300 consumers had filed complaints with Spitzer's office accusing
AOL, a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Warner (TWX),
of ignoring their requests to cancel service and stop billing." -By
Mark Johnson -AP
via -USATODAY
Hacking
- EMail
-
- "Hacker
underground erupts in virtual turf wars: A chain
of warring virus attacks last week fits an emerging trend." ... "In the
early days of computer attacks, when bright teens could bring down corporate
systems, the point was often to trumpet a hacker's success. No longer."
... "In today's murky world of digital viruses, worms, and Trojan horses,
the idea is to stay quiet and use hijacked computers to flood the Internet
with spam, spread destructive viruses, or disgorge e-mail to choke corporate
systems. Not only can networks of these compromised computers be leased
or sold, experts say, they are becoming more valuable as the number of
vulnerable computers slowly shrinks." ... "That's a major reason that turf
wars are emerging among hackers." -By Peter N. Spotts
-CSMonitor
Georgia
- New
York - Hacking
- Microsoft
-
-
- "Microsoft
Windows Virus Shuts Down Some CNN, ABC Computers."
... "A computer virus targeting Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software shut
down machines at Time Warner Inc.'s CNN and Walt Disney Co.'s ABC network."
... "CNN spokeswoman Laurie Goldberg confirmed computer failures in Atlanta
[Georgia] and New York and said she wasn't sure which worm caused the damage.
ABC computers on the East and West coasts were affected, spokesman Jeff
Schneider said today. He also couldn't identify the worm or virus." -By
Dina Bass -Bloomberg
Telecom
- Consumer
-
- "Verizon
allowed customers to access others' usage records."
... "Verizon Wireless customers who signed up for online billing services
were able to peek at some details of others' accounts due to a Web site
programming error that was caught by a customer and fixed this week, a
company spokesman said." -AP
via -USATODAY
- Telecommunications
- -
- "FCC
frees DSL providers from regulations: Firms no longer
have to lease lines to their competitors." ... "The Federal Communications
Commission ruled Friday that Internet DSL providers like SBC will no longer
be required to lease high-speed lines to independent rivals." ... "Phone
companies like SBC have been required to lease wholesale access to their
high-speed lines to competing Internet providers, which number about 4,
000 nationwide. On Friday, the FCC ruled that DSL providers were in the
business of information services and not bound by the higher regulatory
requirements placed on telecommunications companies." -By
Ryan Kim -SFGate.com
- Telecommunications
- -
- "FCC:
Phone giants may charge rivals more for line access:
Bells win freedom from Net rate rules." ... "The Federal Communications
Commission voted 4-0 Friday to scrap regulations that forced phone companies
to let competitors rent space at discounted rates on networks that deliver
high-speed Internet service." ... "The vote means SBC Communications Inc.
and other Baby Bells can raise the price they charge competitors such as
EarthLink Inc. That change may help phone companies challenge the cable
providers that dominate the $15.6 billion market for high-speed Web access."
-Bloomberg
-
-
-
- Microsoft
- "Microsoft
sues Google over executive." ... "Microsoft sued
Google yesterday after the Internet search leader hired away a high-ranking
executive whom the Redmond company described as a key player in developing
its search technology and China strategy." ... "The lawsuit against Google
and the departing executive, Kai-Fu Lee, underscores the fierce competition
in the booming Internet search business. Microsoft alleges that Lee's appointment
to lead a new Google research-and-development center in China violates
terms of his employment contract that keep him from working in a directly
competitive position for a year after his departure." -By
Todd Bishop -SeattlePI.NWsource
-
- -
-
-
-
-
- Secrets
- Kansas
- "Panel
to weigh beefed-up Patriot Act: Move would broaden
FBI wiretap powers." ... "The Senate Intelligence Committee will meet behind
closed doors this week to consider legislation that could dramatically
expand the government's police powers under the USA Patriot Act, including
a little-discussed provision to enlarge the FBI's ability to wiretap people
who it suspects are national security threats." ... "The proposal, in a
draft bill sponsored by committee chairman Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas,
would lift one of the last restrictions on special warrants the FBI can
obtain through a secret court originally set up to monitor foreign spies:
that the information the bureau wants must be related to international
terrorism or foreign intelligence." ... "Instead, the FBI could use the
warrants, which bypass normal constitutional safeguards, to look for evidence
of unrelated crimes that it could use to get suspects off the street. The
wiretap provision is one of three major additions in the draft bill, which
would reauthorize the Patriot Act, the package of enhanced law enforcement
powers enacted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." ... "If the bill became
law, it also would give FBI agents the power to write their own subpoenas
without permission from a judge, allowing them to seize records from hotels,
banks, and Internet service providers." -By Charlie
Savage -Boston/Globe
- "Internet
infection holds files 'hostage'." ... "Computer users
already anxious about viruses and identity theft have new reason to worry:
Hackers have found a way to lock up the electronic documents on your computer
and then demand $200 over the Internet to get them back."
-AP via -CNN
- "Report:
Internet Retail Sales Up 24 Pct.: Internet Retail
Sales Surge 23.8 Percent to $19.8 Billion in First Quarter, Commerce Dept.
Says." ... "First-quarter retail Internet sales rose 23.8 percent to $19.8
billion in the United States from $16 billion a year ago, according to
preliminary numbers released Friday by the Department of Commerce." ...
"E-commerce sales during the first quarter rose 6.4 percent from the fourth
quarter, when they were $18.6 billion." -AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
Massachusetts
-
- EMail
-
- "Massachusetts
fires legal broadside at spam gang." ... "Massachusetts
Attorney General Tom Reilly obtained an emergency court order on Wednesday
shutting down dozens of websites allegedly operated by a sophisticated
ring of Boston area spammers. The group [of seven] are allegedly behind
millions of unsolicited, deceptive email messages touting unapproved counterfeit
drugs, pirated software, and pornography that have plagued email users
for months." ... "The suit accuses the unmagnificent seven of violations
of Massachusetts' Consumer Protection Act and the Federal CAN-SPAM Act
and seeks the imposition of a permanent injunction and unspecified damages
against the defendants."-By John Leyden
-TheRegister.co.uk
-
-
-
- "U.S.
mayor takes leave amid online-sex probe." ... "Spokane's
Republican mayor took a leave of absence on Monday after officials seized
a city computer in his home to investigate whether he used it illegally
to solicit sex on gay Web sites." ... "[Spokane, Washington] Mayor James
West, 54, a former state legislator known for his strong positions against
gay rights and teen sex, said in a statement last week that he had explored
homosexual relationships online. But he described himself as a "law-abiding
citizen" said he had not broken the law." -By William
Stimson -Reuters
via -Wired
-
- "Your
Identity, Open to All." ... "A search for personal
data on ZabaSearch.com -- one of the most comprehensive personal-data search
engines on the net -- tends to elicit one of two reactions from first-timers:
terror or curiosity. Which reaction often depends on whether you are searching
for someone else's data, or your own." ... "ZabaSearch queries return a
wealth of info sometimes dating back more than 10 years: residential addresses,
phone numbers both listed and unlisted, birth year, even satellite photos
of people's homes." ... "Launched in February, the site has emerged during
a period of heightened sensitivity about data privacy and identity theft,
now among the fastest-growing crimes in America." ... "Critics say ZabaSearch
is exploiting the lack of data privacy in America." ... "But the founders
of ZabaSearch maintain they're not villains, and that their service is
a step toward data democratization. If your information is already out
there, the logic goes, at least now you'll know about it." (1, 2,
3,
4)
-By Xeni Jardin -Wired
-
-
- Psychology
- EMail
- "E-mails
'hurt IQ more than pot'." ... "Workers distracted
by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than
a person smoking marijuana, a British study shows." ... "The constant interruptions
reduce productivity and leave people feeling tired and lethargic, according
to a survey carried out by TNS Research and commissioned by Hewlett Packard."-CNN
-
- Marketing
- "Google
profit trounces targets." ... "Google net income
rose to $369.2 million, or $1.29 a share, in the first quarter, from $64.0
million, or 24 cents a share, a year earlier." ... "Virtually all the company's
revenue comes from ads that are triggered when Web users type certain key
words into Google's search engine." -Reuters
via -CNN
-
- Tom
DeLay -
"DeLay
criticizes Supreme Court justice." ... "The No. 2
Republican in the House has been openly critical of the federal courts
since they refused to order the reinsertion of Schiavo's feeding tube.
And he pointed to Kennedy as an example of Republican members of the Supreme
Court who were activist and isolated." .. ""Absolutely. We've got [Supreme
Court] Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law,
not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous," DeLay
told Fox News Radio on Tuesday. "And not only that, but he said in session
that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly
outrageous."" -AP
via -CNN
- Telecom
- "Verizon
offering 'naked' DSL in Northeast." ... "Verizon
Communications said Monday that some customers who already subscribe to
its phone and high-speed Internet service can drop their local calling
plans but still keep their speedy Web connection."-AP
via -Boston/Globe
-
- Marketing
- "Yahoo
profit doubles on strong Web ad growth." ... "Yahoo's
(YHOO)
first-quarter profit doubled as the Internet powerhouse continued to ride
a rising tide of online advertising." ... "Yahoo is in a prime position
to fulfill the advertising demand because it runs the world's most popular
Web site and operates a leading search engine that distributes ads across
the Internet." -AP
via -USATODAY
-
-
- Hacking
- Secrets
-
- Telecom
- "U.S.
Military's Elite Hacker Crew." ... "The U.S. military
has assembled the world's most formidable hacker posse: a super-secret,
multimillion-dollar weapons program that may be ready to launch bloodless
cyberwar against enemy networks -- from electric grids to telephone nets."
... "The group's existence was revealed during a U.S. Senate Armed Services
Committee hearing last month. Military leaders from U.S. Strategic Command,
or
Stratcom, disclosed the existence
of a unit called the Joint Functional Component Command for Network Warfare,
or JFCCNW." ... "In simple terms and sans any military jargon, the unit
could best be described as the world's most formidable hacker posse. Ever."
(1, 2)
-By John Lasker -Wired
-
-
- Microsoft
- "Update:
Adobe to buy Macromedia for $3.4B: The move puts
Adobe squarely in the path of rival Microsoft Corp., analysts say."...
"The deal would combine the companies' document management, Web publishing
and online video delivery tools, putting Adobe squarely in the path of
rival Microsoft Corp., analysts said." ... "[California] San Jose-based
Adobe and San Francisco-based Macromedia have some of the most widely distributed
software in the world. Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) and Acrobat
Reader software is common on most [computer] desktops, and Macromedia's
Flash products are widely used to create and view animation, video and
other content." -By Scarlet Pruitt and Martyn Williams
-Computerworld
Hacking
-
- "Schools
Boot Snoopy Grad Students." ... "It was a scandal
so awful that Harvard Business School rejected more than 100 applicants.
MIT called it an ethical breach. Stanford called it troubling." ... "As
CBS
News Correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports, it wasn't exactly hacking.
Someone had posted the backdoor instructions and the students accessed
their own files three weeks early."
-CBSNews
-
- Wireless
- Telecom
- "Minneapolis
envisions citywide Wi-Fi." ... "Minneapolis [Minnesota]
is about to become an unwired city, creating a universal wireless Internet
access network available to every citizen, visitor, business and municipal
facility within city limits." ... "On Wednesday, the city will unveil a
request for a proposal for a privately owned, $15 million to $20 million
citywide wireless and fiber-optic network. It is likely to use the Wi-Fi
(wireless fidelity) technology that has created several hundred Internet
access "hot spots" for laptop computer users in metro coffee shops, bookstores,
airports and hotels." ... "Consumers would be able to buy broadband access
of 1 million to 3 million bits per second for $18 to $24 a month --a bit
slower than wired cable modem service but about half the price." (1, 2)
-By Steve Alexander -StarTribune.com
Databases
- Hacking
-
-
- "March
data breach much larger than first reported." ...
"Data broker LexisNexis said Tuesday that personal information may have
been stolen on 310,000 U.S. citizens, or nearly 10 times the number found
in a data breach announced last month." ... "An investigation by the firm's
Anglo-Dutch parent Reed Elsevier determined that its databases had been
fraudulently breached 59 times using stolen passwords, leading to the possible
theft of personal information such as addresses and Social Security numbers."
-Reuterswith
contributions by Adam Pasick via -USATODAY
-
-
-
- Virginia
- "Man
gets nine years for spamming: A man has been sentenced
to nine years in jail by a Virginia judge for sending millions of junk
emails, or "spamming"." ... "Jeremy Jaynes, 30, is the first person in
the US to get a prison term in a spam case. He is said to have been the
world's eighth most prolific spammer." ... "By selling sham products and
services advertised in his messages, he earned up to $750,000 (£398,000)
per month." ... "Jaynes has appealed, and the court has put off the start
of his prison term because the new law raises questions." ... "Under Virginia
law, sending bulk email using fake addresses is a crime."-BBC
/News
-
-
-
-
- "MTV
Site Revs Into Overdrive." ... "MTV on Wednesday
unveiled plans for MTV Overdrive, a Web channel through www.mtv.com offering
more advanced viewing and video-on-demand capabilities for an audience
accustomed to instantaneous content." ... "The initiative is a great example
of giving viewers MTV programing "available whenever they want it," [President
of M TV networks Van] Toffler said. He added that the online platform gives
"much more breadth and depth" than what can be offered on TV." (1, 2)
-By Kathleen Anderson and Chris Marlowe
-HollywoodReporter -Reuters
-
-
- "Gore's
TV network set to launch with Google tie-in: Former
Vice President Al Gore and partners have renamed their upcoming youth-oriented
TV network and set Aug. 1 as its launch date." ... "The venture, formerly
called INdTV, will be called Current.tv, it was announced on Monday. The
24-hour network will target an 18- to 34-year-old audience and offer short-form
content--15-second to five-minute segments--to be contributed by viewers."
... "In addition to the videos, the new network reached a pact with Google
to include the search firm's the most popular Web searches." -By
Richard Shim -CNET
via -ZDNet>News
- "Google
Adding Personal Video to Search Repertoire." ...
"Google in January rolled out the test version of its video search service
that allows users to find content in television programs from such providers
as Fox News, the NBA and PBS." ... "The service, called Google Video, allows
users to see still images from the video clips and associated closed-captioning."-Reuters
-
-
- Telecommunications-
"Supreme
Court to Hear Case on Cable's Regulatory Duties."
... "The case revolves around a ruling issued in 2002 by the Federal Communications
Commission that the service provided by cable companies should be defined
as an "information service," and not a "telecommunications service," which
is the designation given to traditional telephone companies." ... "Companies
with the "information service" designation do not have to comply with regulations
requiring them to lease lines to competitors, or meet certain service standards
and state public utility requirements." -By Matt Richtel
-NYTimes
-
-
- Telecommunications
- "What's
A Cable Modem, And Who Decides?" ... "The appeals
court ruled in October 2003 that cable modems are akin to telecommunications
providers, which meant that they would have to open their lines to rival
Internet service providers." ... "The appeals court had followed its own
earlier interpretation of the federal statute, the Telecommunications Act.
In the interim, however, the FCC had issued in 2002 a "declaration" that
cable modem service should be considered an information service, which
freed the big cable companies like Time Warner (nyse: TWX
- news
- people
) and Comcast (nasdaq: CMCSA
- news
- people
) from the all-comers obligation that applies to telecommunications providers
such as SBC Communications (nyse: SBC
- news
- people
) and Verizon Communications (nyse: SBC
- news
- people
)." -By Dan Ackman -Forbes
-
-
-
- Telecommunications
- "Cable
Modem Case Heads to the Supreme Court: Court will
examine whether broadband cable networks must be open to competing ISPs."
... "A group of ISPs this week will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to require
broadband cable providers to share their networks with competitors, just
as incumbent U.S. telecommunications carriers were required to share their
DSL networks during the past five years." ... "U.S. broadband customers
would have more choices of providers, and the new competition could drive
down prices if the Supreme Court rejects a U.S. Federal Communications
Commission attempt to classify cable modem service as an unregulated information
service, say the ISPs pushing for cable-sharing rules." -By
Grant Gross -IDG.net
via -PCWorld.com
-
-
-
- Telecommunications
- "FCC
unplugs states' rules on 'naked' DSL: update A deeply
divided Federal Communications Commission suspended on Friday state rules
forcing phone providers to offer "naked" DSL, in the commission's first
serious look at the controversial issue. " ... "The ruling kicks off an
investigation into naked DSL--selling broadband access by digital subscriber
line without attaching it to other services, such as a local phone line."
... "Proponents of the state rules say naked DSL keeps the Bells in check,
promotes competition and holds broadband prices under control. BellSouth
said the market is better served by not letting states set up a confusing
maze of regulatory regimes." ... "Aside from users of naked DSL services,
an FCC decision would also affect "cord-cutters," a group of about 20 million
U.S. residents who don't have local phone lines and go solo instead with
their cell phones. As a result of the FCC ruling, cord-cutters may have
to buy a local phone line to get DSL." -By Ben Charny
-CNET
/News
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Photo
- "News
Agency Sues Google, Testing Fair Use: French News
Agency AFP's Lawsuit Against Google Tests Fair Use in the Internet Age."
... "In a case that could set limits on Internet search engines, the French
news agency AFP is suing Google Inc. for pulling together photos and story
excerpts from thousands of news Web sites." ... "Agence France-Presse said
the "Google News" service infringes on AFP's copyrights by reproducing
information from the Web sites of subscribers of the Paris-based news wholesaler."
(1, 2,
3)
-By Anick Jesdanun with contributions by Randy Herschaft-AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
- "IAC,
Ask Jeeves confirm $1.85 bln deal." ... "IAC/InterActiveCorp
and Ask Jeeves confirmed Monday that they've reached an agreement under
which IAC/InterActive would acquire Ask Jeeves for $1.85 billion in stock."
... "The deal calls for IAC/Interactive, which is run by Barry Diller,
to swap 1.2668 common shares for each shares of Ask Jeeves, which has been
profitable for the past two fiscal years and rang up sales of about $200
million in 2004. Its market cap as of Friday's close was $1.43 billion."
-MarketWatch
-
- Telecommunications
- "Phishing
by phone--VoIP raises security concerns." ... "Some
Internet phone services let scam artists make it appear that they're calling
from another phone number--a useful trick that enables them to drain credit
accounts and pose as banks or other trusted authorities, online fraud experts
say." ... "The emerging scams underline the lower level of security protecting
voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, the Internet-calling standard that
has upended the telecommunications industry over the past several years."
... "Internet worms that snarl online networks can render VoIP lines unusable,
and experts at AT&T say VoIP conversations can be monitored or altered
by outsiders." -Reuters
via -CNET
/News
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Photo
- "Agence
France Presse Sues Over Google News." ... "Agence
France Presse has sued Google Inc. (GOOG.O: Quote,
Profile,
Research)
, alleging the Web search leader includes AFP's photos, news headlines
and stories on its news site without permission." ... "The French news
service is seeking damages of at least $17.5 million and an order barring
Google News from displaying AFP photographs, news headlines or story leads,
according to the suit filed on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia." -By Lisa Baertlein -Reuters
California
- Consumer
- Company
- Computer
- Database
- Net
- Hackers-
"Big
ID Theft in California." ... "A company that collects
consumer data warned thousands of Californians that hackers penetrated
the company's computer network and may have stolen credit reports, Social
Security numbers and other sensitive information." ... "ChoicePoint Inc.,
which sells such data to government agencies and a variety of companies,
acknowledged Tuesday that several hackers broke into its computer database
and purloined data from as many as 35,000 Californians."
-Wired
- "India's
cultural elite revive muckraking magazine: After
declining under previous government, Tehelka.com rebounds, bolstered by
reader funding." ... "Tarun Tejpal's story shows the perils and promise
of muckraking journalism in modern India." ... "His Internet news portal,
Tehelka.com,
was almost hounded out of existence after rocking India's political and
defense establishment three years ago with a seedy exposé of high-level
corruption." ... "The Tehelka tapes, declared bona fide late last month,
depicted top military officials and politicians accepting bribes - and,
in some cases, prostitutes - from reporters posing as defense contractors.
The news portal was crushed in an alleged government backlash, and its
staff fell from 125 employees to three under the weight of police raids
and a lengthy judicial inquiry." -By Dan Morrison
-CSMonitor
-
- "Web
inventor wins top technology prize." ... "The MIT
scientist credited with inventing the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee,
was today awarded the first Millennium technology prize." ... "The award,
a €1m (£670,000) cash prize, is among the largest of its kind."
... "Mr Berners-Lee is credited with creating the world wide web in the
early 1990s while working for the Cern Laboratory, the European centre
for nuclear research near Geneva, Switzerland. His graphical point-and-click
browser, World Wide Web, was the first client that featured the core ideas
included in today's web browsers." -AP
via -Guardian.co.uk
2004
ELECTION - "Howard
Dean Ends His White House Bid." ... "Former Democratic
front-runner Howard Dean on Wednesday pulled the plug on his roller-coaster
White House bid." ... "Dean said while his White House campaign is over,
he will turn his Internet-based operation, which set fund-raising records
and connected with legions of new activists, into a grass-roots force for
change." -By Thomas Ferraro
-Reuters via -ABCNEWS.com
- 2004
ELECTION - "Pentagon
scraps 2004 online voting." ... "The Pentagon has
canceled plans to allow military personnel to vote online in the November
2004 presidential elections, a Defense Department spokeswoman said Thursday."
... "A group of four computer scientists criticized
the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment in a Jan.
20 report. The scientists were invited by the Pentagon to critique the
program, and they alleged that the SERVE system has numerous "security
problems that leave it vulnerable to a variety of well-known cyberattacks.""
-By David McGlinchey -GovExec.com
-
- 
-
-
- Microsoft
News - "The
Coming Search Wars." ... "Bill Gates, the chairman
of Microsoft, stated his admiration for the "high level of I.Q." of Google's
designers. "We took an approach that I now realize was wrong,'' he said
of his company's earlier decision to ignore the search market. But, he
added pointedly, "we will catch them.''" ... "Microsoft is intently poring
over Google's portfolio of patents, hunting for potential vulnerabilities,
Mr. Schmidt [Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive] contended. And because
Google is running its business using Linux - the free open source software
that has become the biggest challenger of Windows - Microsoft is concerned
that it may be at a competitive disadvantage."
-NYTimes
- "China's
Web surfers rise to 79.5 million people." ... "The
number of Internet surfers in China grew to 79.5 million people at the
end of 2003, up an annual 34.5 percent, a semi-official research centre
says." ... "China, which already had the world's second-largest Web population
after the United States, added 20.4 million new online users during the
year, the China Internet Network Information Centre said on its Web site
www.cnnic.com.cn." -Reuters
via -Reuters.co.uk
- "Cuba
cracks down on internet use: A new law has been passed
in Cuba which will make access to the internet more difficult for Cubans."
... "Only those authorised to use the internet from home like civil servants,
party officials and doctors will be able to do so on a regular phone line."
... "The bill says the state telephone company Etecsa will use technical
means to detect and impede access." -BBC/News
- "The
Growing Web." ... "When the Pew Internet and American
Life Project began chronicling the online medium in March 2000, 52 million
Americans logged onto the Internet each day. By this past August, that
figure had swelled 27 percent, to 66 million." -By
Lisa Napoli -NYTimes
via -Google-News
- "Electronic
voting firm acknowledges hacker break-in." ... "A
Bellevue, Wash., company developing security technology for electronic
voting suffered an embarrassing hacker break-in that executives think was
tied to the rancorous debate over the safety of casting ballots online."
... "VoteHere confirmed Monday that U.S. authorities are investigating
a break-in of its computers months ago, when someone roamed its internal
computer network. The intruder accessed internal documents and may have
copied sensitive software blueprints that the company planned eventually
to disclose publicly." -By Ted Bridis
-AP via -USATODAY
- Consumer
News - "It's
not called 'Can' Spam for nothing." ... "After six
years of wrangling over legislative ways to stop spam, Congress was still
faced with a fundamental choice: Give consumers control over the growing
flood of unwanted spam e-mail that fills their in-boxes, or give in to
the powerful advertising and marketing industries who want to be the ones
filling consumer in-boxes." ... "In the end, consumers lost." ... "The
Can-Spam Act, signed
into law Tuesday, is being touted as relief for the millions of consumers
beset with unwanted e-mail. But careful readers will notice that the law
is not called the "Can't-Spam" Act. There's a good reason: The law is little
more than an instructional guide for how to keep pumping out millions of
e-mails per hour while avoiding legal liability." -By
Ray Everett-Church -CNET/News
-
- "Bush
Whacked Online: Search Engine Trick Lists President
as ‘Miserable Failure’" ... "Type in "miserable failure" on the Google
Web site and the first Web link most likely to show up will take you directly
to the official online biography for the current occupant of the Oval Office.
(The trick will also sometimes work on Yahoo! and other search engines.)"
... ""This is not a political statement from Google, but rather a reflection
of a recent Web phenomenon," says a spokesman for Google in Mountain View,
Calif. "In this case, a select group of Web masters used the words [miserable
failure] to describe and link to George Bush's Web site."" ... "In other
words: the president has just been the latest victim of a "Google bomb,"
a crafty but simple manipulation of how the well-known online search engine
works." (1, 2,
3))
-By Paul Eng -ABCNEWS.com
- "No
Exams Required: Pharmacist Nailed for Online Drug Sales."
... "Francine Haight will never forget the day she found her son Ryan,
a high school senior, lifeless, in his bed." ... "It turned out that some
of the drugs that killed the La Mesa, Calif., teen on Feb. 12, 2001 came
from nationpharmacy.com, a Norman, Okla.-based Internet drug store owned
by pharmacist Clayton Fuchs, who also ran other similar Web sites." ...
"In October, a federal jury convicted Fuchs, 33, on six felony offenses
including conspiracy to dispense a controlled substance, operating a continuing
criminal enterprise and money laundering. Prosecuted under the Drug Kingpin
Statute, he faces 20 years to life in prison when he is sentenced Feb.
11." (1,
2,
3)
-By Greg Hunter -ABCNEWS.com
-
- "Google
stops accepting ads from unlicensed pharmacies."
... "Google Inc. has stopped accepting advertisements from unlicensed pharmacies,
joining other popular sites that have bowed to pressure to limit access
to the drugs, such as Vicodin." ... "The crackdown on unlicensed pharmacies
comes as regulators and Congress intensify their focus on third parties
- Web sites, credit companies and shipping companies - that make it easier
for illicit operators to sell potentially dangerous drugs." -By
Michael Liedtke -AP
via -Miami/Herald
- "China
Releases 3 Internet Writers, but Convicts 1 Other."
... "China released three Internet essayists who were detained a year ago
for criticizing the government, including a college student in Beijing
whose arrest on subversion charges had attracted international attention,
a human rights group based in Hong Kong reported Sunday." -By
Philip P. Pan -WashingtonPost
-
- 
-
- "Web
sites vanish so fast scientific papers just can't keep up:
Disappearing links cause consternation -- it's not academic." ... "In research
described in the journal Science last month, the team [dermatologist Robert
Dellavalle and his co-workers] looked at footnotes from scientific articles
in three major journals -- the New England Journal of Medicine, Science
and Nature -- at three months, 15 months and 27 months after publication.
The prevalence of inactive Internet references grew during those intervals
from 3.8 percent to 10 percent to 13 percent." ... ""I think of it like
the library burning in Alexandria," Dellavalle said, referring to the 48
B.C. sacking of the ancient world's greatest repository of knowledge. "We've
had all these hundreds of years of stuff available by interlibrary loan,
but now things just a few years old are disappearing right under our noses
really quickly."" -By Rick Weiss-WashingtonPost
via -SFGate.com
- "House
Approves Antispam Bill: First nationwide antispam
law expected by year's end." ... "Lawmakers are one step closer to enacting
the first nationwide antispam law. The House of Representatives on Saturday
overwhelmingly approved a bill that would fine spammers who violate restrictions
on unsolicited commercial e-mail." ... "The Controlling the Assault of
Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act was approved by
a vote of 392-5. The move follows the U.S. Senate's approval
of its version of the CAN-SPAM Act in October with a 97-0 vote." -By
Rita Chang and Laura Rohde -IDG.net
via -PCWorld.com
- "Yahoo
back in X-rated business." ... "Yahoo Inc., which
removed adult products and banner ads from its U.S. Web portal in 2001
after protests by conservative groups, is back in the pornography business."
... "Yahoo isn't the only Internet company doing business with the adult
industry. For example, Google features adult ads for certain searches while
EBay has created an adult products category, accessible only after users
enter their credit card information." -By Verne Kopytoff
-SFGate.com
- "Dipping
into books online: Is it stealing? Amazon.com
says its new 'Search Inside the Book' feature has boosted sales. But authors
worry that people will read just what they need and not buy the book."
... "Late last month, Amazon.com opened a whole new portal to the world
of books. The cyberretailer's new "Search Inside the Book" feature makes
the entire content of books available -free - to anyone with a high-speed
internet connection and a credit card." ... "Now, Web surfers can unearth,
read, and even print recipes, travel tips, or anything else mentioned in
the 120,000 books whose publishers have let Amazon make their texts fully
searchable." -By John C. Ryan
-CSMonitor
-
- Microsoft
News - "Web
patent critics spotlight old technology." ... "If
Web technologists can find the right example, they believe they can help
set aside a federal jury's recent finding that Microsoft had violated a
patent held by tiny Web developer Eolas Technologies. The so-called '906
patent describes a way that a Web browser can call up a separate application
from within a Web page." ... "Eolas gained international attention with
its $521 million patent infringement victory over Microsoft, a judgment
that has focused the attention of the software industry in a way few other
patent cases have. Microsoft has already detailed plans to change its Internet
Explorer browser, which could force countless Web developers to rewrite
their Web pages." -By Paul Festa-CNET/News
- "Senate
votes unanimously for do-not-spam list: A registry
would block unwanted e-mail solicitation." ... "The Senate voted unanimously
Wednesday to · build on the new do-not- call registry's success
by adopting a plan for a national do-not-spam list to block the tidal wave
of e-mail solicitations for everything from get-rich schemes to pornography
that threatens to engulf the Internet." ... "But the effort faces an uncertain
future in the House and the marketing industry pledged to fight the creation
of an anti-spam registry -- even if it is technically feasible." -By
Edward Epstein -SFGate.com
- "Google
considers online auction of IPO shares." ... "Google
is considering holding a massive online auction of shares early next year
in an initial public offering that investment bankers predict could value
the internet search-engine company at more than $15bn." ... "An electronic
auction would be designed to prevent a recurrence of the sort of financial
scandals that have engulfed Wall Street since the collapse of the dotcom
bubble, according to a person close to the company." ... "It could also
slash the underwriting fees paid to investment banks, the person added,
and in the process help to break Wall Street's hold on the lucrative IPO
business." -By Richard Waters
-FT.com
-
- "Targets
of File-Sharing Lawsuits Warned: Recording
Industry Sends Out Warnings Before Next Wave of Lawsuits Over Illegal File
Sharing." ... "The record industry's trade group has warned 204 people
suspected of illegally swapping music over the Internet that it plans to
file lawsuits against them." ... "The letters give the recipients 10 days
to contact the RIAA to discuss a settlement and avoid a formal lawsuit.
The RIAA declined to identify the individuals, but said they were sharing
an average of more than 1,000 songs on their computers."
-AP via -ABCNEWS.com
- "A
Young Hacker Buys Options, Borrowing an Investor's Identity."
... "A Pennsylvania youth has been accused of a complex scheme to unload
worthless stock options by hacking into another investment account and
using it to buy the securities from him." ... "According to court filings
yesterday by the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors
in Boston, Van Dinh, 19, a college student, used a singular blend of computer
crime, securities fraud and identity theft to dump stock options in Cisco
Systems last July, about a week before they were scheduled to expire
and cost Mr. Dinh as much as $100,000." -By John Schwartz
-NYTimes via -Google-News
ELECTION
2004 - "Clark's
campaign manager quits in fued over direction of presidential bid."
... "Wesley Clark's campaign manager quit Tuesday in a dispute over the
direction of the Democratic presidential bid, exposing a rift between the
former general's Washington-savvy advisers and his 3-week-old Arkansas
campaign team." ... "Donnie Fowler, 35, told associates he was leaving
over widespread concerns that supporters who used the Internet to draft
Clark into the race are not being taken seriously by top campaign officials."
-AP via -USATODAY
-
-
- "Trust
Betrayed? School Security Tapes of Kids Undressing
Viewed on Net, Suit Says." ... "A Tennessee school district where security
cameras were installed in a middle school's locker rooms is accused of
allowing images of children changing their clothes to be viewed over the
Internet." ... "The parents of 17 children, ages 10 to 12, have filed lawsuits
in federal and state courts against the Overton County School Board and
Edutech Inc., the company that installed the cameras in the district's
Livingston Middle School. The suits seek more than $4 million in damages."
-By Dean Schabner -ABCNEWS.com
-
- "Fellowship
of the online gamers." ... "In such fantasy worlds,
players who've never met in person form tight allegiances - and the ties
are based on tests of individual character, not gender, class, or race.
While critics decry the violence in many of these games, or worry about
the social maladjustment of adolescents who spend hour upon hour playing
them, the popularity seems rooted in the fellowship of the players, not
in the virtual mayhem and carnage. In fact, even as video games become
less violent and more interactive, more and more players are logging on."
... "This contradicts the widely held belief that violent onscreen images
are what draw kids to video games." -By Elizabeth
Armstrong -CSMonitor
-
- "Court:
Anonymous P2P no defense: Operators of peer-to-peer
networks cannot escape copyright infringement claims by giving their members
the ability to mask the content that changes hands on their networks, a
federal appeals court ruled Monday." ... "Calling the tactic a form of
"willful blindness," the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld
a lower court's injunction against the Madster file-swapping network that
had ordered the service shut down pending a trial. But, in a mixed decision,
the court also bolstered a key defense argument invoking a comparison between
file-swapping software and personal home video recording." -By
Paul Festa -CNET/News
-
-
-
- "Hatch
Takes Aim at Illegal Downloading." ... "During a
discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange
music and movie files over the Internet, [Utah's Republican Senator Orrin]
Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved
in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate
federal anti-hacking laws." ... ""No one is interested in destroying anyone's
computer," replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles
company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique
deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can't."
... ""I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer
"may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."" -By
Ted Bridis -AP
via -WashingtonPost
>TechNews
-
- "Clean
air at the Internet truck stop cafe: Hookup
lets drivers turn off engine, go online at night." ... "Trucks pull into
bays that feature long, flexible tubes hanging from the roof. Each tube
ends in a control panel and vents for heated or cooled air. Drivers pull
the apparatus into their window and fasten it there. A touch- sensitive
screen on the control panel will let them set the thermostat, check maps
of the area or surf the Internet." ... "Basic services cost $1.25 per hour
for truck owners or fleets that have signed agreements with IdleAire, with
fees payable through a credit-card reader above a computer screen." ...
"The fees should be cheaper than idling a truck. Because federal law requires
long-haul truckers to take eight hours off for every 10 spent on the road,
most drivers will pay about $10 per day with the IdleAire system, Everhart
said. Without it, they spend about $15 to $20 per day on diesel burned
while the truck is idling, he said." -By David R.
Baker -SFGate.com
- "Mob
Eyed in Internet Sex Fraud Case: The Mob Is
Behind a Massive Internet Sex Fraud Case, Federal Prosecutors Say." ...
"The $230 million Internet fraud scheme believed to be the largest ever
prosecuted produced a series of recent arrests of alleged members and associates
of the Gambino organized crime family in New York and Florida." ... "According
to documents filed in federal court in New York, the Gambinos' foray into
the lucrative world of Internet porn began in 1996 when the defendants
opened an adult entertainment business based in Manhattan." ... "The sites
offered "free tours" for anyone who presented credit card information as
proof of age, promising in a message, "Your card will not be billed." But
thousands of consumers in the United States, Europe and Asia were still
charged recurring monthly rates of $90 before they realized they had been
cheated, prosecutors said." -AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
-
- "Online
divorce grows in popularity, despite skepticism."
... "Offering a simpler and cheaper path to divorce, an ever-growing array
of dot-coms, computer-savvy lawyers and state court officials are encouraging
unhappily married Americans to arrange their breakups online." ... "For
fees ranging from $50 to $300 - a small fraction of what most lawyers charge
even for an uncontested divorce - couples are being provided with the appropriate
forms and varying degrees of help completing them." -By
David Crary -AP
via -StarTribune.com
-
-
-
- "Software
Bullet Is Sought to Kill Musical Piracy." ... "Some
of the world's biggest record companies, facing rampant online piracy,
are quietly financing the development and testing of software programs
that would sabotage the computers and Internet connections of people who
download pirated music, according to industry executives." ... "The record
companies are exploring options on new countermeasures, which some experts
say have varying degrees of legality, to deter online theft: from attacking
personal Internet connections so as to slow or halt downloads of pirated
music to overwhelming the distribution networks with potentially malicious
programs that masquerade as music files." (1, 2)
-By Andrew Ross Sorkin
-NYTimes via -Google-News
-
- "Cisco
enables Internet wiretaps." ... "Addressing a major
concern of law enforcement, Cisco Systems has developed a way for police
to listen in on Internet-based phone calls without detection." ... "The
world's largest maker of networking equipment is testing surveillance products
in its labs and making the service available to customers on request, spokesman
Jim Brady said." -AP
via -USATODAY
- Enron
News - "Prosecutors
set to charge more Enron executives." ... "Federal
prosecutors are expected as early as Thursday to bring charges against
additional executives from Enron's Broadband Services division, including
Ken Rice, the former head of the group." ... "The expected charges against
Mr Rice are significant because he was a top lieutenant of Jeff Skilling,
the Houston energy company's former chief executive, and may ultimately
be convinced to help prosecutors work their way up the company's executive
ladder." -By Joshua Chaffin
-FT.com
- "Fake
hate emails mar activists' reputations: Arab-American
activist Nawar Shora checked his e-mail one day and found scores of angry
messages asking why he hated Americans and Jews. The messages were responding
to e-mails marked as coming from him. Only one big problem: Shora never
sent the hate mail." ... "Shora, a legal adviser to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee, was the victim of a new form of harassment in which fake e-mail
is sent using real addresses." -AP
via -CNN
-
-
- "Judge
rules file-sharing tools are legal: A US federal
judge has reversed many of the recording industry's previous victories
over peer-to-peer services, comparing Morpheus and Grokster software to
VCRs and photocopy machines." ... "In an almost complete reversal of previous
victories for the record labels and movie studios, federal court Judge
Stephen Wilson ruled that Streamcast -- parent of the Morpheus software
-- and Grokster were not liable for copyright infringements that took place
using their software. The ruling does not directly affect Kazaa, software
distributed by Sharman Networks, which has also been targeted by the entertainment
industry." -By John Borland with contributions by
Lisa Bowman -CNET/News
-ZDNet.co.ukt>News
-
-
- OPINION
- "Operation
Commentary Storm." ... "The Internet is brimming
with so much Iraq war commentary that a crop of new directories has sprouted
to help people sift through it all." ... "Other sites publishing extensive
links to war reports from mainstream media include the Poynter Institute
(www.poynter.org), which also features a gallery of home pages from the
war's opening night. And the American Press Institute's Media Center (www.cyberjournalist.net)
includes its own war blog, encapsulating coverage of the fighting from
many sources." -By Leslie Walker-WashingtonPost
via >TechNews
-
- "Web
Site Hacks Rise as War Rages in Iraq." ... "As bombs
continue to fall in Iraq, protesters and patriotic hackers alike have stepped
up their war of words on the Internet, defacing hundreds of U.S. and UK
corporate and government Web sites, a security expert said on Friday."
... ""We've had reports of 800 defacements today, which is ten times more
than a week ago, which tells me groups are increasingly turning to the
Internet to protest," said Mikko Hypponen, manager of Finnish anti-virus
software firm F-Secure." -By Bernhard Warner-Reuters
- -
"Iraq
conflict hits websites hard: The war in Iraq
is testing the ability of many websites to cope with record numbers of
visitors." ... "Net users eager for news of the conflict are turning to
the web to keep up with the latest developments." ... "But the flood of
visitors is proving too much for some the websites run by news organisations,
government departments and branches of the military." ... "Firms that monitor
the responsiveness of websites are already reporting that some are taking
much longer than usual to appear." ... "" -By Mark
Ward -BBC/News
-
-
-
- "MLB.TV
Puts Live Games Online." ... "Looking to cash in
on the popularity -- and exclusivity -- of online audio broadcasts of baseball
games, Major League Baseball's Web portal on Tuesday launched a new MLB.TV
service that offers on-demand and live access to pay-per-view video feeds."
... "The MLB.TV service, an extension of a three-year exclusive deal with
Seattle-based RealNetworks (Quote,
Company
Info) will employ IP tracking to protect network television rights
of local games but, because the technology has been unreliable as a geo-location
tool, it's likely to raise the ire of MLB's television partners that shell
out billions of broadcast rights." ... "According to Arbitron's Webcast
Audience Profiles, fans who tune in and pay for baseball Webcasts were
a prized lot." -By Ryan Naraine
-InternetNews.com
-
- "Afghanistan
inaugurates Net country code: Afghanistan,
where the Internet was banned during the rule of the Taliban, will formally
launch its .af domain for Afghani Web sites and e-mail addresses on Monday,
the United Nations said." ... "The first Web sites officially registered
under the new domain are the sites of the Communications Ministry (www.moc.gov.af)
and the local unit of the UNDP (www.undp.org.af)."-Reuters
via -CNET/News
-
- "Net
speed record smashed: Scientists have set a
new internet speed record by transferring 6.7 gigabytes of data across
10,978 kilometres (6,800 miles), from Sunnyvale in the US to Amsterdam
in Holland, in less than one minute." ... "Using a quantity of data equivalent
to two feature-length DVD-quality movies, the transfer was accomplished
at an average speed of more than 923 megabits per second, or more than
3,500 times faster than a typical home broadband connection." ... "The
data were sent across the Internet2 network. This is operated by a consortium
of 200 universities working in a worldwide effort to develop and deploy
tomorrow's internet." -By Dr David Whitehouse
-BBC/News
-
-
- "Web
porn filters go to high court: Case to decide
whether use in libraries violates freedom of speech." ... "Software filters
that Congress wants public libraries to install on computers may protect
children from pornography on the Internet, but they also block large quantities
of information on subjects ranging from health to politics to gays and
lesbians." ... "According to court filings, libraries provide Internet
access to 10 percent of the 143 million Americans who use the Web, and
to a larger share of the nation's poor." -By Bob Egelko
-SFGate.com
-
- -
"Justices
Hear Arguments on Internet Filtering Law." ... "The
American Library Association and other groups are challenging the Children's
Internet Protection Act, or CIPA, a law that threatens public schools and
libraries with the loss of federal technology funding if they fail to install
filtering software." ... "President Clinton signed CIPA in 2000, but a
three-judge federal court panel in May 2002 froze the law after the American
Library Association and other civil liberties groups complained that the
law violates free speech rights. The Bush administration then asked the
Supreme Court to review the case." (1, 2)
-Compiled by Robert MacMillan-WashingtonPost>TechNews
-
-
-
- "Should
libraries filter out Internet porn? The high
court weighs the protection of children against free-speech rights." ...
"The justices struck down the 1996 Communications Decency Act and remanded
to a lower court a case challenging the 1998 Child Online Protection Act."
... "Wednesday, the high court begins examining whether Congress's latest
attempt in this area, the Children's Internet Protection Act, is impermissible
censorship or a justifiable attempt to shield American youths from harm."
-By Warren Richey -CSMonitor
-
- "Iranians
arrested for net dating: Dozens of young Iranians
have been detained for "unlawful actions" after using a website to arrange
dates, officials say." -BBC/News
-
- "In
antiwar 'march,' protesters flood senators with calls, e-mail."
... "Antiwar protesters traded marching shoes for phones, fax machines,
and computers yesterday as part of a ''virtual march'' on the nation's
capital." ... "''We will let our fingers do the marching and demand that
our voices be heard,'' said Tom Andrews, the national director for Win
Without War, the group that organized the protest." ... "Andrews said about
400,000 people had registered through the group's website for the call-in
campaign." -By Vanessa Palo
-AP via -Boston/Globe
-
- "World's
first internet president logs on: Web already
shaping policy of new South Korean leader." ... "South Korea will stake
a claim to be the most advanced online democracy on the planet tomorrow
with the inauguration of a president who styles himself as the first leader
fully in tune with the internet." ... "The rise of webocracy has already
made South Korea a place of exhilarating but unpredictable change. In recent
months online campaigns have swung the presidential election, stirred tens
of thousands into anti-US protests and nudged government policy on the
nuclear standoff." -By Jonathan Watts
-Guardian.co.uk
-
- "AltaVista's
lost mission." ... "Not so long ago, an Internet
search engine grew to become a kind of Web sensation. A simple approach
and leading-edge technology sparked a grass-roots popularity that spread
like wildfire without the benefit of any real marketing campaign." ...
"This isn't the fabulous Google story, though it could be. I'm talking
about AltaVista, the search company sold by CMGI Inc. to Overture Services
Inc. for stock and cash worth $140 million this week." -By
Steven Syre -Boston/Globe
- "Hacker
gains access to 5.6 million Visa, MasterCard numbers."
... "An "unauthorized intruder" gained access to about 8 million credit
card account numbers -- including Visa, MasterCard and American Express
-- by breaching the security of a company that processes transactions for
merchants, the card companies said Tuesday." -By Eileen
Alt Powell -AP
via -StarTribune
-
- "New
dating game: Hit the keyboard, checklist in hand."
... "... if some used to believe romance was "in the stars," today it is
apparently in the stats. In a web-linked world, a $25 subscription fee
provides instant access to tens of thousands of eligible singles - and
the digital tools to sift candidates based on height, age, income, or a
penchant for macramé. Love remains an art, but the rise of online
personal ads is bringing a new level of science to the realm of romance."
... ""I'm calling it digital Darwinism," says E. Jean Carroll, an advice
columnist for Elle magazine. "It has really, truly, right in front of our
eyes revolutionized sexual selection."" -By Amanda
Paulson -CSMonitor
Space
Shuttle Columbia Disaster
- "eBay
users try to sell Columbia debris." -By
Scott Ard -ZDNet>News
-
- "Net
Providers Must Help in Piracy Fight: Judge
Orders Internet Providers to Help Trace Users Who Illegally Download Music."
... "Internet providers must abide by music industry requests to track
down computer users who illegally download music, a federal judge ruled
Tuesday in a case that could dramatically increase online pirates' risk
of being caught." ... "The decision by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates
upheld the recording industry's powers under a 1998 law to compel Verizon
Communications Inc. to identify one of its Internet subscribers who was
suspected of illegally trading music or movies online." ... "Verizon promised
Tuesday to appeal and said it would not immediately provide its customer's
identity." -AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
-
-
- "Slain
Woman's Family Fights Internet Brokers: The
family has filed a lawsuit against Docusearch, an Internet information
broker that sold information to the woman's killer." ... "... Amy Boyer,
was 20 when she was shot to death Oct. 15, 1999, by a former high school
classmate, Liam Youens." ... "Invasion Of Privacy." ... "Youens
had paid an Internet information broker to track her down. For the three
years since the murder, Boyer's parents have fought to protect other potential
victims, most recently by suing the broker for negligence and invasion
of privacy." -By Holly Ramer
-AP via
-GovTech.net/news
20021220
- TIA:
Total Information Awareness
- "Bush
Administration to Propose System for Monitoring Internet."
... "The Bush administration is planning to propose requiring Internet
service providers to help build a centralized system to enable broad monitoring
of the Internet and, potentially, surveillance of its users." ... "The
proposal is part of a final version of a report, "The National Strategy
to Secure Cyberspace," set for release early next year, according to several
people who have been briefed on the report. It is a component of the effort
to increase national security after the Sept. 11 attacks." ... "The President's
Critical Infrastructure Protection Board is preparing the report, and it
is intended to create public and private cooperation to regulate and defend
the national computer networks, not only from everyday hazards like viruses
but also from terrorist attack. Ultimately the report is intended to provide
an Internet strategy for the new Department of Homeland Security." -By
John Markoff and John Schwartz -NYTimes
via -Google-News
OPINION
-
-
-
- TIA:
Total Information Awareness
- "Snooping
in All the Wrong Places: Not only would the
Administration's plan to centralize every American's records destroy privacy,
the security payoff would be minimal." ... "The 2002 elections proved one
thing: The promise of security wins votes. The GOP campaigned on a pledge
to make the country safer, and it brought home one of the biggest midterm
victories in decades. That huge win may have emboldened the Bush Administration
to ignore widespread criticism of the Defense Dept.'s $240 million effort
to develop a Total Information Awareness system (TIA)." ... "The outrage
over TIA doesn't seem to have reached the President's ear, but it should.
It's not too late for him to realize the folly of such a plan. Funded by
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the project would
combine every American's bank records, tax filings, driver's license information,
credit-card purchases, medical data, and phone and e-mail records into
one giant centralized database. This would then be combed through for evidence
of suspicious activity." -By Jane Black
-BusinessWeek/Daily
Christmas
- "The
gift of virus: In the spirit of the holiday
season, a tale of one man who clicked too soon but discovered that missent
e-mail can still lead to a wonderful life." ... "This holiday season, when
thoughts turn to family and friends, we are all perhaps a little more trusting,
and maybe a little more gullible. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
That's my one excuse for falling prey to a software virus that disguises
itself as an e-card." -By Nick Altebrando
-Salon
-
- TIA:
Total Information Awareness
- "The
web bites back." ... "Protesters are turning the
tables on government officials and businessmen who they say are making
the web less pleasant to use." ... "The web activists have found the personal
details of the man behind a federal surveillance system [John Poindexter]
and an e-mail spammer [Alan Ralsky] and are giving them a dose of their
own medicine." -BBC/News
-
- "UK
internet shopping 'breaks £1bn mark'." ...
"For the first time, UK consumers have spent more than £1bn ($1.6bn)
in just one month shopping online, according to a survey." ... "Online
sales have risen by 95% over the past year, IMRG said, compared with a
rise of just 6.1% in general retail sales." ... "US figures for the July
to September period this year showed online shopping sales were more than
$11bn, representing 1.3% of total US retail sales, an increase of 34.3%
on the same period last year." ... "In the UK, online sales over the same
July to September period reached £2bn ($3.14bn), representing 4%
of total UK retail sales, up 114.5% on the same period in 2001."-BBC/News
-
- Press Release - "imrg
e-retail sales index - internet shopping bursts £1bn barrier."
- Links to [PDF]:
"Internet
Shopping Bursts £1 Billion Barrier!" ... "Santa
is shopping online this year in a BIG WAY. Monthly internet shopping
soared into ten figures for the first time in November as Britain's 14.3
million online shoppers flooded e-retailers with £1,000 million worth
of orders, according to the IMRG Index." ... "The Index has risen almost
ten fold, from 100 to 993, during the 32 months it has tracked UK e-retail
sales, since April 2000, and the pace of growth it reveals continues to
accelerate. The November Index was based on sales of £218 million
reported by 77 participating e-retailers, which represents 22% of the estimated
market." ... "UK online shopping is growing three times faster than in
the USA, and is three times the proportion of total retail sales.
US retail e-commerce sales for the third quarter of 2002 was just over
$11 billion, representing 1.3% of total US retail according to latest figures
from the US Department of Commerce, an increase of 34.3 percent from Q3
2001. UK e-retail during the same period was worth £2 billion
($3.14 billion), representing 4% of total UK retail, and was 114.5% higher
than Q3 2001." -IMRGorg
Microsoft
News - "Microsoft
reveals 'critical' security flaws." ... "In a security
bulletin published late Wednesday, Microsoft urged Windows users to download
a new version of Microsoft Virtual Machine, which is the part of Windows
that runs Java-language applications. The new version corrects eight vulnerabilities
discovered by Microsoft and outside experts."
-AP via -SiliconValley
Microsoft
News - Microsoft.com
Security Bulletin: - "What
You Should Know About Microsoft Security Bulletin MS02-071:Security
Update for Microsoft Windows." .... "Why We Are Issuing This Update:
A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise
a computer running Microsoft® Windows® and gain complete control
over it. An attacker would need the ability to log onto the computer to
carry out an attack. You can help protect your computer by installing this
update from Microsoft." ...
-
- "Australia
trial could set Web precedent." ... "Australia's
highest court ruled on Tuesday that a defamation case sparked by a story
on a U.S Web site could be heard in Australia, opening a legal minefield
for web publishers over which libel laws they must follow." ... "The
landmark ruling that an article published by Dow Jones & Co was subject
to Australian law -- because it was downloaded in Australia -- is being
watched by media firms as it could set a precedent over where Internet
publication occurs." -Reuters
via -CNN /Sci-Tech
OPINION
-
- "Digital
Robber Barons?" ... "... the wide-open, competitive
world of the dial-up Internet depended on the very government regulation
so many Internet enthusiasts decried. Local phone service is a natural
monopoly, and in an unregulated world local phone monopolies would probably
insist that you use their dial-up service. The reason you have a choice
is that they are required to act as common carriers, allowing independent
service providers to use their lines." ... "Last March the F.C.C. used
linguistic trickery — defining cable Internet access as an "information
service" rather than as telecommunications — to exempt cable companies
from the requirement to act as common carriers. The commission will probably
make a similar ruling on DSL service, which runs over lines owned by your
local phone company. The result will be a system in which most families
and businesses will have no more choice about how to reach cyberspace than
a typical 19th-century farmer had about which railroad would carry his
grain." -By Paul Krugman
-NYTimes via -Google-News
- "Update:
Bush Creates ".Kids" Domain." ... "President Bush
signed into law on Wednesday a bill that would create a ".kids" domain
name, and certify that the domain was "safe" for minors." ... "The .kids
domain will actually be a subdomain of the ".us" suffix, and so will only
apply to web sites based in the U.S, such as "www.example.kids.us". Since
the domain is under the purview of the U.S. country code, it will be overseen
by the Department of Commerce." -By Mark Hachman
-ExtremeTech
- "Ricochet's
Comeback Means Free Wireless Internet Access for Cities:
Municipal governments striking new deals to get free wireless access."
... "Denver-based Ricochet Networks offered Internet access to 51,000 subscribers
in 21 cities until its owner, Metricom, went bankrupt last year." ... "Aerie
Networks has resurrected Ricochet, spending $8.25 million for technology
and equipment that Metricom spent $1.3 billion developing." ... "Technological
Quid Pro Quo." ... "Now, Ricochet is offering cities free service and
giving their public employees modems to use on the job. In return, Ricochet
gets to use transmitters that fell into cities' control after Metricom
went bankrupt." -By Catherine Tsai
-AP via
-GovTech.net/news
-
- "Fraud
fears still hamper online sales." ... "The number
of Britons doing Christmas shopping online is expected to soar this year
but the government says fear of fraud is still preventing sales reaching
their potential levels." ... "The government is keen to encourage more
net shopping, with Consumer Minister Melanie Johnson telling shoppers that
online retail can be safe if they follow a few simple rules." ... "She
is advising consumers to use websites they know or that have been recommended,
obtain suppliers' telephone numbers or postal addresses and keep copies
of order forms or e-mails."-BBC/News
Microsoft
News -
- "Briton
Indicted as Hacker: Entry to U.S. Military
Systems Called Biggest Ever Detected." ... "An unemployed British computer
system administrator was indicted yesterday in Alexandria and New Jersey
on eight counts of computer fraud for alleging [sic] penetrating about
100 U.S. government computers, shutting down networks and corrupting data
in what U.S. Attorney Paul J. McNulty called "the biggest hack of military
computers ever detected."" ... "From February 2001 to March 2002, two federal
grand juries alleged, Gary McKinnon, 36, of London, exploited a known security
problem with Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 2000 to break into 92 computers
at NASA, the Pentagon, and more than a dozen military installations in
14 states." -By Brooke A. Masters-WashingtonPost
>TechNews
- "Playing
the Ad Game: Marketers Use Online Games to
Make Soft Sales Pitches." ... "Analysts are still trying to determine just
what kind of impact such "advergames" will have on the overall dismal online
advertising market. But many note that the addictive nature of such interactive
games are attracting companies to try and develop the medium into an effective
advertising vehicle." ... "Most developers say it can cost anywhere from
$50,000 to $500,000 to produce an advergame, depending on its complexity.
However, the return on such investments can be much higher than other forms
of advertising." -By Paul Eng
-ABCNEWS.com
TIA:
Total Information Awareness -
- "Pentagon
Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data of Americans."
... "As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has described
the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will provide intelligence
analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information
from Internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transactions
and travel documents, without a search warrant." ... "Historically, military
and intelligence agencies have not been permitted to spy on Americans without
extraordinary legal authorization." ... "In order to deploy such a system,
known as Total Information Awareness, new legislation would be needed,
some of which has been proposed by the Bush administration in the Homeland
Security Act that is now before Congress. That legislation would amend
the Privacy Act of 1974, which was intended to limit what government agencies
could do with private information." (1, 2)
-By John Markoff -NYTimes
via -LawMeme
- Sniper
- "The
Subject On Everyone's Screen." ... "The Internet
is abuzz with wild speculation and outrage over the rifle shootings that
have killed 10 people and terrorized the Washington area. In a pattern
that's becoming familiar when big news breaks, the Internet is where people
turn to vent their emotions, share thoughts and drill down for information
they might have missed or can't get from TV and newspapers." ... "Google,
the Internet's top search engine, said "sniper" has zoomed to the top of
its list of fast-rising search terms. Lycos said "Washington sniper" was
its 10th most common search query last week, and that searches pertaining
to "sniper rifles" had tripled. More people also are entering "bulletproof
vest" into the query box at Lycos.com." -By Leslie
Walker -WashingtonPost
>TechNews -Washtech
- OPINION
- "Can
You Trust Your Computer?" ... "Who should your computer
take its orders from? Most people think their computers should obey them,
not obey someone else. With a plan they call "trusted computing," large
media corporations (including the movie companies and record companies),
together with computer companies such as Microsoft and Intel, are planning
to make your computer obey them instead of you. Proprietary programs have
included malicious features before, but this plan would make it universal."
... ""Treacherous computing" is a more appropriate name, because the plan
is designed to make sure your computer will systematically disobey you."
... "Programs that use treacherous computing will continually download
new authorization rules through the Internet, and impose those rules automatically
on your work. If Microsoft, or the U.S. government, does not like what
you said in a document you wrote, they could post new instructions telling
all computers to refuse to let anyone read that document. Each computer
would obey when it downloads the new instructions. Your writing would be
subject to 1984-style retroactive erasure. You might be unable to read
it yourself." -By Richard Stallman
-NewsForge via -CorpWatch.org
- "Night
owls boost online spending." ... "Internet shopping
has captured a new "out-of-hours" market which is claiming an ever greater
proportion of UK retail spending, a report said." ... "Research from Barclaycard
suggested that one third of all online sales were made between 6pm and
9am." ... "The report suggested travel and financial service products were
the most popular online purchases with night owls, and that the average
spend was £1.60 higher than during the day."-BBC/News
- "As
stalkers go online, new state laws try to catch up:
One of the first trials for 'cyberstalking' in the US opens in Illinois
this week." ... "Upwards of 100 new cases are reported each week of someone
using the Internet to intimidate another person." ... "This week ... one
of the first cases of cyberstalking in the US will be played out in a suburban
Chicago courtroom." -By Terry Costlow
-CSMonitor/buy
- "[Japanese]
Defense network breach probed." ... "[Japanese] Police
join Fujitsu to trace extortionists." ... "Police joined the Defense Agency
and prime computer network contractor Fujitsu Ltd. on Tuesday to plug a
leak of information about proprietary local area networks (LAN) developed
by Fujitsu for the nation's Ground and Air Self-Defense Forces." ... "The
Defense Agency and Fujitsu sources said the leaked information involved
details about network connections and Internet protocol addresses for servers
that link Ground Self-Defense Force and Air Self- Defense Force headquarters
offices and regional units, as well as remote terminals."
-Asahi>English
- "Ethical
hacker faces war driving charges." ... "A Houston
computer security analyst has been charged with hacking after demonstrating
the insecurity of a county courts wireless LAN." -By
John Leyden -TheRegister.co.uk
Messaging
- "Music
Bill Is Bully on IMs." California's Democratic Congressman
Howard
Berman has submitted legislation that permits copyright owners to hack
citizens private computers. ... "If the attack was somehow a case of mistaken
identity, recourse would be difficult. Individuals would have to petition
the Attorney General for a private investigation. After the initial request,
the agency would have four months to look into the matter." ... "Along
with making it open season on individual users, open-source programs and
decentralized networks, the bill also gives a free pass to chat applications
run by the very media companies that would most benefit from open-source
networks being shuttered." (1, 2)
-By Brad King -Wired
- "China
ranks third in Internet usage." ... "Surging Internet
usage has made China the No. 3 user of the Internet in the world, a new
[Chinese] report asserts, with more than 45 million citizens now logging
on regularly even as the government struggles to control subversive content."
-AP via -CNN
OPINION
- "Fair
Use advocates silenced by Big Brother." ... "Advocates
trying to speak for regular Internet users were basically told to sit down
and shut up during a "public" workshop on digital rights management dominated
by IT heavyweights and Big Hollywood at the U.S. Department of Commerce
Wednesday." ... "Brett Wynkoop of NY for Fair Use did get a comment on
the record because he sat at the table with Big Hollywood and Big IT and
commandeered the microphone at one point, which meeting moderator Phillip
Bond, undersecretary for Technology in the U.S. Department of Commerce,
later objected to. "We have a structure here," Bond said more than once
when fair use advocates tried to take the floor." -By
Grant Gross -NewsForge
via -TheRegister.co.uk
Operation_TIPS
- "Is
your cable guy a spy? On the heels of plans
for new powers to patrol people's Web use, the U.S. government is again
turning to technology to monitor suspicious activity in the name of fighting
terrorism." -By Lisa M. Bowman -CNET
/News
- "China
To Offer Hand Delivered E-Mail." ... "China Post,
the official postal service for the world's most populous nation, said
Thursday it will introduce a new service enabling people to write mail
on their computers, send it to the post office over the Internet like e-mail,
then have it delivered anywhere in China by human mail carrier."
-AP via -WashingtonPost
Messaging
- "AIM
5 Beta Goes Public." -By David
Worthington -eWEEK
OPINION
[PDF] - "Administration's
Broadband Policy Would Strangle ISPs, Destroy Competitive Internet Marketplace."
-ConsumerFed.org
OPINION
[PDF] - "The
Importance of ISPs in the Growth of the Commercial Internet:
Why Reliance on Facility-Based Competition Will Not Preserve Vibrant Competiition
and Dynamic Innovation on the High-Speed Internet." -ConsumerFed.orgWorldCom
News - "WorldCom
Debacle Causes Telco Shock Waves." ... "Sources close
to the nation's second-largest long-distance carrier said WorldCom likely
will not shut down its voice and data networks, which carry about half
of all e-mail traffic worldwide, without sufficient warning to customers.
Still, many maintain that the company's time is limited." -By
Caron Carlson -eWEEK