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More Holiday Cheer: Control This Guy’s Appearance on National TV with Your Web Browser

Many of you will remember that we reported on Alek Komarnitsky and his 17,000 Christmas lights which you can control with your web browser. Well, if you enjoyed that (and if you haven’t yet checked it out, you really should), now you can influence not only Alek’s Christmas lights, but…

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Spammers Slammed with $1Billion Court Penalty

We’ve all heard of AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Earthlink. And Aunty has noted many times on these pages the lawsuits which they have each, and together, instituted against spammers over the course of this past year. Good on ya, says Aunty. But it isn’t just big, well-known ISPs who can…

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CEO of Online Auction Company Arrested for Home Porn Listed on Site

Forget upskirting and downblousing. What do you call it when you take a video of yourself during an..um…intimate moment – with a camera phone for chrissakes? How about this one: what do you call it when you take a video of yourself during an intimate moment with a camera phone,…

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One Last Windows Security Patch for the Week

When Aunty reported on the five Windows security updates earlier this week, you didn’t actually think that it would be the last update for the week, did you? Oh no. Say “hello” to bouncing baby update #6 for the week. This fine young specimen is an update for Windows XP…

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10 Things You Should Know About CAN-SPAM

[Reprinted with permission from the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy] 10 Things You Should Know About CAN-SPAM 1. CAN-SPAM applies only to commercial email. 2. CAN-SPAM applies to email for which a primary purpose is to feature your goods, services, or content even if you do not send…

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FTC Defines “Commercial Email” Under CAN-SPAM (Email Marketing)

It’s one of the most widely anticipated pronouncements from the Federal Trade Commission since the Paramount Antitrust Case. As they were charged with doing under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, the Federal Trade Commission has today announced the official definition of “Commercial Email” as it applies to CAN-SPAM. This is…

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It’s in the Cards – Internet Worm Poses as Electronic Christmas Card

Instead of the Grinch who Stole Christmas, it’s the Worm who Sneaks Into Your Computer Disguised as an Electronic Christmas Card. And oh joy, targetted specifically towards Windows systems, just to ensure you a white-out Christmas. Yes, this year it’s the dreaded Zafi worm which is making the rounds garbed…

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Man Sentenced to 6 Months of No Internet

It’s been a hard month for reporters here in the Net Patrol. First Rachel Buchman loses her job as a reporter at WHYY for threatening a spammer, then Brian McWilliams infiltrates a Rolex knock-off spam ring, and now television news reporter Jim Taricani is sentenced to six months of house…

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Bit Torrent Takes Legal Hits on Two Fronts

Popular file-sharing service BitTorrent today took a double hit as a large BitTorrent server site was raided by police in Finland, while in the United States hundreds of peer-to-peer system operators were sued by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The Finnish raid lead to the arrest of 34…

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Hardware Hacker Does Hard Time

Some of you may remember when infamous hacker Kevin Mitnick was all over the news. Mitnick spend a bit over 5 1/2 years in prison for his hacking exploits. Well, a Michigan man has just received the longest prison sentence ever handed down in a hacking case, nearly twice that…

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A New Meaning for the “Mile High Club” – Wireless Internet on Airplanes

The Federal Communications Commission today gave the nod of approval to allow wireless networking on airplanes. The intent is to allow the wireless access to piggy-back on existing air-to-ground radio transmissions which already exist in the cabin of the airplane. This would obviously be a boon for business travelers, Internet…

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Unix Security Holes! 44 of ’em!

Professor D.J. Bernstein of the University of Illinois at Chicago has notified the Unix security community that his students have found no fewer than forty four security vulnerabilities in Unix. Bernstein gave the students for his MCS Computer Science (Unix) course the assignment to find ten previously undiscovered security holes…

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Maryland Anti-Spam Law Held Unconstitutional

A Maryland judge held this week that Maryland’s anti-spam statute is unconstitutional. His reasoning is that the law seeks to regulate business which either is conducted from or through other states, over which Maryland does not properly have jurisdiction. Put in plain English, the logic is that because spam is…

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Deep Undercover, a Reporter Learns that Unsubscribing from Spam Works!

Brian McWilliams is a savvy reporter on the spam beat. No slouch, he, and author of the popular book “Spam Kings”, McWilliams Knows Spam. So, upon receiving the gazillionth piece of spam advertising fake Rolex watches, McWilliams decided to do what any righteous reporter would do: he decided that if…

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As Promised: Microsoft’s 5 Windows Security Updates

As Aunty promised, here is the rundown on the five… count ’em… five security updates which Microsoft just released for Windows users and administrators: 1. Vulnerability in WordPad According to the Microsoft site, the vulnerabilty in WordPad allows an attacker to “take complete control of the affected system”. Ouch. There…