A Dutch boy who was mugged and robbed last year by a pair of 24-year-old twin robbers just happened to find an image of the moment before the mugging occurred, in the Google Street View on Google Earth.
|
Articles on Around the WorldA Dutch boy who was mugged and robbed last year by a pair of 24-year-old twin robbers just happened to find an image of the moment before the mugging occurred, in the Google Street View on Google Earth. Germany will be voting tomorrow on their proposed Internet censorship law, which would create a list of verboten websites (primarily dealing with the underaged in inappropriate situations) that will be targeted for official German governmental censoring. It was only a few months ago that Australia's plan to censor websites that it deemed inappropriate or illegal blew up in its face, with the list of censored website being leaked to and widely published on the Internet. It has come to light that none other than the Obama administration itself asked Twitter to please delay planned routine maintenance this week, so that the juggernaut of Twittering and Twitter coverage of the Iran elections and ensuing demonstrations and riots could continue without interruption. We've been telling people for years not to put pictures of your children up online on the Internet. Nobody ever believes us that perfect strangers will not only find those pictures, but do inappropriate things with them. Now here's a real-life example of this happening. In the instant case, Danielle and Jeff Smith are lucky that "all" that was done with the picture of their children is that it was blown up bigger than lifesize and used in an advertisement half-way around the world. A website in Holland - Miljoenhuizen.nl - has been held liable for the summary that Google search turned up for its site. Yes, you read that right - they were held responsible for the fact that Google excerpted and concatenated text from their webpage in a way that suggested that the plaintiff, the BMW dealership Zwartepoorte, had gone bankrupt. With just two days until the 20-year anniversary of the horrific massacre at Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government has censored and blocked Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Live.com and Hotmail.com, and even the new Microsoft Bing.com The European Commission has sued the country of Sweden for failing to implement the European Union (EU) Data Retention Directive - a mandate of having in place data retention legislation aimed at codifying how and for how long an ISP must retain user data. Twitter has boldly gone where no social media has gone before: space. More specifically, one of the current crew members of the space shuttle Atlantis, Mike Massimino, is Twittering from space. An Irish college student has proven that journalists are using Wikipedia as a primary - and indeed only - source for their stories, without doing any fact checking whatsoever. By inserting and then tracking a fake quote in the Wikipedia entry for French composer Maurice Jarre, who died in March, 22-year old Shane Fitzgerald determined that even such august media outlets as the BBC are susceptible to the "it's on Wikipedia, it must be true" fallacy. The United Nations Educational Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) has unveiled the World Digital Library - a website onto which they are scanning ancient writings, pictures, and other media. And by ancient, we are talking antiquities - even now, in the UN WDL's early stages, some of the earliest scanned images date from 8000 BC. The British Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT), has announced plans to provide pro-West Islamic groups with search engine optimization (SEO) training, to help them to acheive higher search engine rankings in Google search than their more radical and terror-focused counterparts. A massive list of nearly 2400 websites around the world that was compiled and targeted for country-wide censorship by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) of the government of Australia has been leaked. The list, which includes not only pornography sites, but anti-abortion sites, poker sites, and even Google group links and Wikipedia pages, is to be sent to every ISP in Australia for use, in order to protect its citizens from viewing...well, apparently, lots of stuff. (Just take a look!) Gary McKinnon, the self-confessed pot-smoking, Asperger's-diagnosed British hacker who went by the nickname "Solo", and who hacked into several U.S. military computer systems (including at the Pentagon and NASA) and now faces extradition to the U.S. to stand trial, has none other than former hostage and Anglican envoy Terry Waite pulling for him. Forget terrorists using Google maps to find targets; criminals are already way ahead in that game, using Google Earth maps to find their next victims - even stealing the very roofs off buildings that they have found using Google maps! The BBC is under fire today for a stunt that it pulled a few days ago, in which it rented a Russian bot net (also sometimes called a spam bot), and then sent millions of pieces of spam, and DOSed a corporate server. The Internet can be used for all kind of great things, and certainly one of those great things has been the development of the microlending sites - where users contribute a small amount of funds, and then the microlending site extends a small business loan (typically up to a few hundred dollars) to individuals to allow the recipient to get on their feet by starting or furthering a small business. However, one site is funding cock fighting, which is not only a horrible blood sport, but is illegal here in the United States. Perhaps more astonishingly, the CEO of the site, Kiva.org, is justifying the practice! Two giant communications satellites crashed over Siberia, Russia, earlier this week, sending debris flying. In addition to the physical fall-out from the sattelite crash, communications for the Iridium portable satellite phone - or "sat phone" - system which was serviced by one of the crashed satellites were disrupted. Google's controversial Street View feature - often accused of invading privacy - is back in the news again. The Google Street Views are created primarily by compiling thousands of images taken by a team of roving Google StreetView vans equipped ... In stark contrast to the United States, where mobile phones for kids seem routine, and cell phones designed for children are seeing increasing marketshare, the government of France has decided to ban cell phones for children. The government of Vietnam is getting ready to clamp down on the thriving Vietnamese blogging culture. In fact, the Vietnamese government is putting in place new regulations aimed at curbing just about any form of free speech in Vietnamese blogs. The new regulations, approved this month, include rules that ban all posts that the government feels undermine the national security of Vietnam or that disclose Vietnamese state secrets. The rules, written by the Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications, also ban any posts that contain “inaccurate information” that could potentially damage the reputation of individuals and organizations. If you are having trouble with Internet connections between Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), India, Lebanon, Malaysia, the Maldives, Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, Taiwan, Yemen, or Zambia, you're not alone. Three undersea cables were cut this morning, leading to a global disruption of Internet connectivity. And this is the second time this year this has happened. An Australian court has allowed someone to be served with notice of a lawsuit - by message on Facebook! By now just about everyone has heard the story of the "Bush shoe thrower" - the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush, and called him a "dog", while Bush was talking at a press conference in Baghdad. Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw both his shoes and the epithet at Bush before denouncing him as having brought death and sorrow to Iraq as a result of six years of war. What is amazing about this story - among other things - is how quickly that incident made it around the world. And that is because of the Internet. Inq Mobile has released the INQ1, which is being touted as "The Facebook Phone". That is because the Facebook Phone's functionality is actually built around Facebook, and other social networking. In essence, it's a social network device first while, oh yeah, it's also a mobile phone. A British doctor working in the Congo has saved the life of a teen by amputating his arm following instructions that were texted to him by a colleague back in the UK. The government of China has had developed its own version of Linux - dubbed "Red Flag Linux" - and is requiring Chinese Internet cafe owners to replace their current Internet cafe operating systems with the Chinese Red Flag Linux. Just a couple of months ago the deadly MetroLink train crash, which killed at least 25 people in California, was held to be due to the engineer texting on his cell phone while driving the train. Now a high ranking British official is being charged with the death of another motorist, when the car he was driving - while texting - collided with another, killing the other driver. Pirates have been in the news a lot lately. Not the pirates of yore, but modern-day pirates who are boarding and hijacking ships right now. In fact, there have been dozens and dozens of pirate attacks on ships off the coast of Africa alone this year, several of them just in the past week. Now you can follow these events with this online interactive map of current and recent acts of piracy. A German court has ruled that an IP address is not afforded the same privacy protections that Internet users enjoy for their names and other personally identifying information, even though a user may have a static IP address which is directly linked to the user alone. Many accounts of what we're about to tell you are saying that it illustrates the dangers of email and autoresponders - but we think that it's really about the danger of not using your brain. It all started in Wales, when the Swansea council needed an English phrase translated into Welsch for a new road sign. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have all signed on to the Global Initiative Network, pledging to protect the privacy of their users around the world, including - perhaps particularly - users in countries such as China, where demands that ISPs rat out their users are routinely made. If you have ever thought "Gee, I wish that we could vote by Internet," well, your wish has just come true. This year, Internet voting has become a reality, as the very first voting by Internet system for a U.S. general election goes online. Unlike other electronic voting machines, the electronic voting machines used for Internet voting are basically just stripped-down, secured, laptops. Assuming it works as planned, it will be perfect for, for example, absentee voting. Authorities in the U.S. and New Zealand have coordinated to take down big time male enhancement and supplement spammers Lance Atkinson and Jody Smith, and their Target Pharmacy, Canadian Healthcare, Inet Ventures, Tango Pay, Click Fusion, and TwoBucks Trading spam operations. Lance Atkinson and Jody Smith were the muscle behind what Spamhaus has called "the biggest spam gang in the world," and they recruited countless affiliates to send their spam through a spam affiliate program called Affking. A new email scam floating around the Internet includes a picture of what appears to be a genuine passport in the name of the sender. The sample we have appears to be a real Algerian passport in the name of Morsli Boubakeur, which is who our email - coming from mauvai98@yahoo.fr - is allegedly from. But it's still a scam - don't be taken in. Canadian activist group Citizen Lab, with the help of an article in the New York Times, has blown the lid off the newest Chinese censorship scandal: the government of China is eavesdropping on, and in some cases intercepting, text messages sent via the Skype network. While everybody knows that Girl Scouts sell cookies, far fewer people realize that Boy Scouts fund raise by selling gourmet popcorn gift tins - popcorn tins full of both regular and flavored popcorn - all different kinds of popcorn, and we at the Internet Patrol are helping! Carmel popcorn, cheese popcorn, chocolate popcorn, even microwave kettle corn! (That's the sweet popcorn you get at farmers markets and movie theatres.) You can even get unpopped gourment popcorn, if you like! But never before has it been so easy to order these gift tins of popcorn - gourmet popcorn gifts that anybody would love - because now you can do it online! And they will ship right to your door, or the door of anyone to whom you want to send popcorn gifts! Firefox and IE both have site blocking (or at least, site warning) built into their current iterations. Google also does site blocking now. All do site blocking based on some metric, known only to them, that tells them that a site is more likely than not to be a malicious site, such as a phishing site, or a site loaded with spyware. The problem with site blocking browsers and site blocking search engines such as Google is that sometimes they get it wrong. The philosoper George Santayana is widely credited with famously uttering the advice that "Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it." This video is dedicated to those whose past - and passing - we must remember, that we may not ourselves repeat it. If you receive a death threat email, you're in good company. The so-called "Hitman email" scam has made a comeback. Around since at least 2006, the content of the death threat email has evolved some, but the general gist of it remainds the same: the Hitman email claims that someone wants you dead, that the Hitman email sender has been hired to kill you, and that if you come up with a sufficient amount of money, they will spare your life. The Condom ring tone has to be the ultimate in socially responsible ringtones. In a novel effort to make condoms and condom use more socially acceptable in India, the BBC World Service Trust has created the Condom ringtone free for anyone - anywhere in the world - to download. Researchers in Germany have come out with a very interesting study about what your choice of email address says about you. We've already talked about what the domain of your email address says about you (such as do you send from aol.com, hotmail.com, yourowndomain.com, etc.), but this new study looks specifically at the username side of your email address. Such as, are you "onehottie@", "buttoneddown@", or "uptight@"? In fact, the title subject is honey.bunny77@hotmail.de (that is the German arm of Hotmail). While the world watched in fascination and horror as Russia and Georgia fought over the region of South Ossetia this week, it is alleged that Russia was also waging its war on another, less carefully-watched front: the Internet. If true, this marks the first time that a nation has publicly added to its arsenal of war strategies the taking out of an enemy's national computer infrastructure. AT&T has announced the roll-out of their AT&T Navigator Global Edition. This truly global cell phone GPS system allows AT&T customers to use their GPS-enabled AT&T phones to navigate with GPS all around the world. Auction giant eBay was recently fined more than 74million dollars for allowing the sale of knock-off designer purses to go unabated. As a good percentage of the United States grinds to a halt for a day of 4th of July festivities, to celebrate our Independence Day, I'd like to make this observation: At this moment in time, many people are not terribly happy with the state of the United States. Indeed, I'd dare say that very few Americans are currently happy with the state of their home country. But I'd like everyone to take a moment to think about how absolutely extraordinary it is that we are here at all. Ian Usher, a British man living down under, has put his entire life up for sale on eBay. The winning bidder - and there are bidders - gets Usher's house, the contents of his house, his car, even his job. Says Ian Usher, "On the day it is all sold and settled I intend to walk out of my front door with my wallet in one pocket and my passport in the other." But would you really want his life? We've done some digging, and we think not. Google had its Gmail tail handed to it on a platter when a German court held - not once, but twice (in preliminary and final orders) - that it could not use the name "Gmail" in Germany, as it infringed on a prior user of that name. As a result, Google is banned from using the Gmail name in Germany, and German Gmail users and others in Germany who wish to access the Google email service are banned from accessing the service via the Gmail name. Pool crashing is the newest in thing with teenagers in Britain, and could well catch on quickly in other countries. The teens are using Google Earth to locate swimming pools in their area; then setting up the pool crash party by announcing it on Facebook. Hot on the heels of a US Air Force Colonel advocating building a bigger, badder and bolder bot-net (reported here on the Internet Patrol) comes news that seven of the twenty-six current members of NATO, the military alliance of democratic European and North American states, are to establish the Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre Of Excellence, in Tallinn, Estonia, taking further the work of NATO's existing internal computer network defense team. Andrew Kellett, known on YouTube as MrChimp2007, has been served with a restraining order that prevents him from adding to his extensive YouTube collection of 80 videos showing off his unlawful behaviour, including dangerous, reckless and high-speed driving; drug use; and theft. His parents must be so proud. The Internet has opened to many of us opportunities to communicate, to share information, and to learn about the rest of the world. We take this almost for granted in the United States. Many countries, though, run scared from the free flow of information and ideas, believing that by repressing the Internet they can continue to repress their population. The Global Online Freedom Act of 2007, also known by its rather more prosaic name, HR 275, is a bill that would outlaw US companies from dealing with countries that censor the internet, and in particular from "disclosing personally-identifiable information about a user, except for legitimate foreign law enforcement purposes." A top U.S. Air Force brass has recommended that the U.S. military create their own super bot-net to attack other bot-nets that are attacking U.S. military computer networks. One of the main problems with this idea, among others, is that it will fry thousands of computers belonging to innocent end-users around the world - users who have no idea that their home computer has been controlled remotely as part of a bot-net ring. The rise in social networking has created an information management and overload problem for many users known as the "Data Portability" problem. The problem starts with authentication, includes having data (profile data, media or otherwise) in several different sites and in different versions, and is compounded by the fortress mentality of many social networking sites. These factors make it difficult for users to manage their online identity and control who sees, at what level of granularity, their personal data. The data portability movement is meant to make this easier. On the other hand, it may also make it easier for social networking sites to buy, sell, and use your data. So how come nobody is talking about the privacy concerns inherent with data portability? The controversial online advertising firm Phorm (pronounced "form") has, for much of this year, been in the middle of a maelstrom of criticism over its plans to serve up ads specific to the user's browsing history. Yet to go live, Phorm continues to sign up ISPs, mostly in the UK where their ISP partners cover 70% of the UK broadband market. Their early access trials, though, have been contentious, and the debate is far from over. How do you feel about having someone access your browsing history, the better to serve you relevant advertising? The good news, for savvy users, is that it can be blocked at the user's browser by permanently blocking cookies from the domain www.webwise.net. Yes, it's really true - people are having Internet funerals. Online funerals have the advantage of allowing people who otherwise could not attend the service to tune in. But still, an online funeral? Why would anybody want to have - or attend - an Internet funeral? Do you really want to entrust the paying of your last respects to your wifi connection? It turns out that some people in England do, and here's why. It's long been apparent to our readers that we at the Internet Patrol are not exactly blind fans of online gaming. And we don't exactly holding up gambling sites as paragons of Internet virtue, either. So news from last week's e-crime congress in London, bringing to light a case of the bad (a gambling site) being brought to its knees by the worse (a botnet), has us pondering the larger implications. Chinese cellular providers China Mobile and China Unicom together have over 500 million active cell phone accounts, and recently more than 200 million of these users received a stream of unwanted and unwelcome advertisements as text messages - cell phone spam. Both cell phone providers and the spammers received a stern talking to from the Deputy Head of China's State Council Office for Rectifying Malpractice (yes, really). We in the anti-spam field have known it all along, but the events of this week confirm it: spammers are worse than prostitutes, pimps, and those involved in plying the human traffic trade. Clearly that is the only way to interpret the actions of former N.Y. Attorney General and soon-to-be-former Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer this week was linked to - and has admitted to - ties to a prostitution ring spanning several countries, and boasting some of the highest-paid call girls in world - some commanding more than $5,000 per hour. But that was chump change for some of the extremely wealthy clients of the ring, which operated through a group and website known as the Emperors Club VIP Revealing a statistic sure to make J.C. Penney, Sears, and every major mallwalk children's photographer shudder, a British survey has found that one out of every five families with children use their cell phone to take and send pictures of their just-born babies to family and friends within ten minutes of the child's birth. And that's not all! An equal number have created a social networking profile, such as on Facebook or MySpace, for their children! We're really proud to be involved in this effort! The Boulder Dushanbe Relief effort, which is working with the United Nation's World Food Programme, is a joint relief effort coordinated by us, and supported by the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse, the Boulder Dushanbe Sister City organization, to help save the 260,000 people in Dushanbe and Tajikistan who are starving and freezing to death due to the extreme winter right now. A few days ago we reported that a third and fourth undersea telecom Internet cable had been cut, following the initial disruptions caused by damage to two underwater cables that had been blamed on anchors dropping on the cables, plunging millions of people in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Middle East, into Internet darkness. Now the plot thickens as a fifth undersea Internet cable outage is reported, and Iran is taken offline. Total users affected so far by the outages exceeds 80million. As a third and then fourth submarine Internet cable are cut, further disrupting power to India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, Qatar, and other Middle East countries, officials admit that the cuts to the undersea cables have not been caused by poorly dropped anchors, but deny that the cable cuts are the result of malicious activity. If you are having trouble getting email to or from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka or the Middle East, it's probably because a badly dropped ship anchor has damaged an undersea Internet provisioning telecom cable in the Mediterranean, disrupting Internet service throughout India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and the Middle East. The cable, belonging to Flag Telecom, was badly cut when a ship anchored off the cost of Alexandria was told to anchor in a place that was not their usual anchor location - resulting in the anchor dropping on the cable. This Valentine's Day, give a true gift of the heart by giving the gift of life - help fund heart surgery for a child. Even $5.00 will help, and you can even donate through Paypal - it doesn't get much easier than that. Yesterday we told you how to boost your vocabularly with the FreeRice.com game, today we're bringing you another free and educational online game, Traveller IQ Challenge. Test your knowledge of world geography, learn something, and have fun! For those of you who wonder why people make child pornography videos, it's because it pays. Fortunately, child pornography and the law don't mix. While people may try to find countries that sell child pornography videos, child pornography is illegal virtually everywhere. Last week police cracked an Internet child pornography ring with 2500 customers in 19 countries, leading to 92 arrests. The lawsuit against Yahoo over the jailing of two Chinese journalist whom they helped the government of China to identify has been settled, after Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang met with the families of the two journalists. In a rush of pollyanic* optimism, their lawyer says "It's no longer possible for a corporation to say 'We were just following orders'." It's like all those foreign movies with bad translations that you like to laugh at, only this time it's real - journalists in Israel used the Babelfish free online translator to translate an email request to the Dutch foreign ministry - and in the process insulted a Dutch dignitary's mother and created an international incident. Who in their right mind would let Babelfish translate a message - let alone send a Babelfish translation - to members of a foreign government whom they wished to interview?? "Is water boarding torture?" is a question that many are asking these days. Now a live water board video has hit the Internet, purposely put on the worldwide web in order to allow people to witness someone being water boarded, and to decide for themselves. See the video of Kaj Larson getting waterboarded here. In a new twist, web spammers are using images of a stripper named Melissa to dupe naive Windows users into helping them break CAPTCHAs - those "enter this text" images that websites rely on to keep spammers from posting spam on their site. Dubbed the CAPTCHA.a or Captchar.a virus, an infected Windows computer will display a picture of Melissa, who promises to remove an article of clothing for each "puzzle" that the user solves. In what may be some very good news for parents, a survey of more than 1200 people has revealed that teenagers and twenty-somethings below the age of twenty-five would rather give up caffeine, chocolate, and even sex, before giving up their cell phone. The military government of Myanmar - formerly known as Burma - has literally cut off Internet access - blaming a "damaged underwater cable" - after an unprecedented sea of images of Myanmar's brutal crackdown on protesters leaked out to the world through the Internet. Burmese bloggers are now afraid for their lives. "When things were hot on the streets, we were not the main worry. But as the situation cools down, they will follow us. They know who we are, they know we are bloggers, and I am afraid," said Myanmar blogger Lo Katt. Project Unity cable - a plan by Google to build a massive, undersea Internet cable across the Pacific ocean, was outed this week as sharp-eyed Google watchers pieced together clues which lead to the discovery of the Unity cable project. Authorities in Guangzhou, China are reporting that a man has collapsed and died after playing online games at an Internet cafe for three days straight. According to news reports, the man collapsed after a "three-day Internet gaming binge." Neither the man's name, nor what he was playing, have been released. Prince - who was formerly known as "the artist formerly known as Prince", due to his adoption of a symbol in place of his name for a period of time - has engaged the aid of online rights audit and enforcement firm Web Sheriff. On behalf of Prince, WebSheriff has threatened both YouTube and eBay with lawsuits if they don't remove what Prince claims is infringing material. Web Sherrif principle John Giacobbi says that eBay and YouTube need to "smell the coffee." The news that famed and beloved Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti had died this evening rocked the world. But what went almost unnoticed - in fact unknown for many - was that the news was broken not by a press conference or press release - not by telephone from his bedside - not by telegram - not even by email - but.. by SMS text message. London's The Times newspaper is reporting that a Pentagon report indicates that China has amassed an enormous, well-armed "cyber army" that is focussed on taking out the United States computer infrastructure, along with that of other "enemies", such as the UK and South Korea. There are a few feactures Of Federal government taxation in Nigeria, along with an overburdened and at times lax penal system, which collude to make Nigeria one of the ideal places to run an advanced-fee scam. In fact, the common name for these scams - 419 scams - comes directly from the Nigerian Penal Code - section 419. A new wave of spam hitting everybody's inboxes takes the form of a welcome to one or another website and service, complete with temporary login information and a link to 'change your temporary password'. The subjects all say some variant of "Login Information", "Member Details", "Registration Details" or, even, occasionally, "Internet Techincal Support" (sic). What they also all have in common is that if you click on that link, your computer will have just become a botnet pimp's newest bitch. Our friends over at SpamShield have come up with a really nifty use for Google maps - they have created a spam map - they call it "Spam World" - which maps where all the spam is coming from - around the world - in real time (well, updated every fifteen minutes). The News Agency of Nigeria is reporting that Nigerian school children who are among some of the first recipients of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) laptops have used them to further their education, as intended - but perhaps not in a way that was intended. They are using them to surf explicit adult websites. A company called Capgemini has been contracted to build an enormous online database of every single child in England, including their address and the telephone numbers. The database, called ContactPoint, is surely the stuff of which the wet dreams of hackers and online paedophiles everywhere is made. Three men were sentenced and jailed in England this past week for using the Internet to incite acts of terrorism. Specifically, Younes Tsouli, Waseem Mughal and Tariq Al-Daour were sentenced to jail after pleading guilty to running a chat site on which they incited people to commit acts which amounted to murder, all in the name of Holy War. Allofmp3.com, one of the top mp3 download sites in the world for people looking for mp3 mp3 downloads, allowing people do to an mp3 search of the works of thousands of popular artists, and then download the mp3s for as little as ten cents, has been closed down by the Russian government in a bid to gain membership in the World Trade Organization. Allofmp3.com was considered a barrier to entry for Russia, with what has been estimated to be the world's largest collection of pirated music, all available as low cost and even nearly free mp3 downloads to Allofmp3's 5.5 million customers. A man in China has died after his Motorola cell phone exploded in his shirt pocket with such force that it broke his ribs, sending a shard of broken bone directly into his heart. The mother of a Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who was jailed for ten years by the Chinese government after Yahoo cooperated with Chinese authorities and revealed Shi Tao's identity and personal details to them, is suing Yahoo in U.S. Federal court. Even if you know what are the Seven Wonders of the World, did you know that they are about to become the old 7 Wonders of the World (not to be confused with the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World)? Or that there is a vote going on for the new 7 Wonder of the World, and that there is now an 8th World Wonder? Like it or not it's true, but thanks to the Internet you can cast your vote for the new seven wonders of the world, and your vote for the 7 world wonders actually counts! (The Pyramids of Giza now have honourary status, hence there now being eight wonders of world acclaim.) While the U.S. attempts to keep GIs from blogging and posting video, not everyone has that restriction. Witness this hot-off-the-presses video, made with footage captured by a webcam mounted on one British Royal Marine's helmet! This video takes you with this Royal Marine as he patrols in Afghanistan, become involved in a skirmish, and gets shot (fortunately, in the backside, and he's relatively fine). There is no real gore in this video, but there is gunfire, and a lot of swearing. I read an article this week about "virtual rape". Yes, really. That would be virtual sexual assault on your virtual online character or persona. This is all coming out now because, I kid you not, someone from Second Life reported a virtual rape to the police in Brussels. And they are investigating it. Oh for pete's sake, give me a break! How tenous a grasp on reality do these people have? And how the heck can there be "forced online sexual activity"? Isn't that nearly an oxymoron? Authorities in Pakistan and Afghanistan say that people are in a frenzy because of a rumour of deadly virus being transmitted by cell phone. The deadly cellphone virus rumor is being blamed on the Taliban. The YouTube video website has been blocked from all of Thailand after a video appeared on the YouTube site which insults the Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, explains Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, Thailand's Minister of Information and Technology. Domain tasting may sound like a funny term, but it's no laughing matter. But exactly what is domain tasting? Sometimes called "Domain Kiting", domain tasting is when someone registers a domain name for the express purpose of testing it out during the five-day grace period to see whether it will receive enough traffic to pay for itself, usually with just the clickthrough advertising on the site itself. "Greetings from Iraq," the subject line says. Who wouldn't at least give that a glance the first time they see that in their inbox? And that's exactly what scammer "Merrill Melvin Hansley", a supposed security manager of STE,CCPLUS STORAGE SARL storage company in Iraq, is counting on. The British government is considering making registered sex offenders register their email addresses and chat names - including names that they use in chatrooms along with their other details. Good idea. Let's have them register what sort of clothing they wear, while we're at it. Some complained, some praised, when Yahoo closed their chat rooms to those under 18 in an effort to help protect children. Yahoo and other chat sites also routinely close down chat rooms which have 'themes' which are related to illegal activities, such as child molestation. Now three men - David Beavan, Alan Hedgcock, and Robert Mayers - have been sentenced in the UK for plotting in a chat room to molest 13- and 14-year-old sisters. The Superbowl Trojan, as some are calling it, has been implanted on dozens of Super Bowl related websites, and is installing itself on any Windows computer that happens to visit any of the Super Bowl sites without adequate protection. The Super Bowl Trojan allows the hacker to take full control over any of these infected Windows PCs by connecting the machine to dv521.com, downloading the W1C.exe file, and installing the Wow-PK Trojan. Spam laden with trojan viruses are running high this month - primarily the Small.DAM Trojan - so be extra careful. Common subject lines include those about "Storm Batters Europe", updates on Condoleeza Rice, and claims that Putin is dead and Hussein is alive. The subject lines vary, but the Trojan payload remains the same: executable files surreptitiously installed on your computer, with file names such as "Full Story.exe", "Full Text.exe", "Full Video.exe", "Video.exe", "Full Clip.exe" or "Read More.exe", or such. We keep telling you that Nigerian 419 and British Lottery scams work because people actually send these scammers money. In case you didn't believe us, police in Holland have arrested a Nigerian man over the holidays who is being charged with being involved with a 419 scam, and he had cash amounting to $4,599,577 in his pocket! A company called Accenture has developed a system for a "virtual family dinner". The concept is simple enough. With people scattered across the United States, and around the globe, it's increasingly rare that a family sits down to dinner together around a table. So, goes Accenture's corpthink, let's have their loved ones sit down with them - wherever they may be. The virtual family meal system is aimed primarily at the elderly, whom are often shut in, or may have special dietary needs which could be monitored by family members on the grid of the system. This year, the Queen of England will not only be broadcasting her message by radio and television, but will also be making it available as a podcast. And, in fact, you can sign up right now, in advance, and have the Queen's Christmas podcast delivered right to you as soon as it is available. The 2B1 "one laptop per child" initiative, also known as the $100 laptop project, is looking for experienced hackers to try to hack the $100 2B1 laptop, so that they can trouble shoot its security issues. But what I want to know is, how many of those laptops will stay with the children, and how many will get sold by their families for food? In a move which may have surprised nobody more than it surprised canned meat company Hormel, Hormel lost their legal effort to regain control over their trademark "SPAM". Sony sure is a PR nightmare, not to mention their careless disregard for the safety and security of their customers. Apparently knowingly installing rootkit software on their music CDs which opened up their customer's personal computers to hacking (which ultimately lead to a lawsuit and recall) wasn't quite enough for them, as it's now coming to light that with the current issues that Sony faces with their laptop batteries catching on fire, they apparently knew that the batteries were flawed and vulnerable to overheating and catching on fire! As we observe the anniversary of 9/11 - the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the United States and the toppling of the World Trade Center - we note some Internet legacies and reminders of 9 /11. The New York Times this week barred web surfers coming in through UK-based IP addresses from reading an article about the terror investigation which is currently ongoing in Britain. "Details Emerge in British Terror Case" read the Times headline, but surfers in the UK could get no further. Some of you may recall Kyle MacDonald and his quest to trade one red paper clip for a house. Well guess what. Kyle MacDonald has done it! In fact, in not quite a year, Kyle MacDonald has managed to parlay one red paperclip, through a series of trades including a part in the movie "Donna on Demand", into a real house. "Limited link marketing", or "pixel marketing", all started witih the Million Dollar Homepage created by Alex Tew. Then came the 1000 Word Page, and now we have expert Internet marketers creating the 500 Word page, the 1024 Ad page, and a new software program to allow even a beginner to put up their own limited link or pixel marketing page. The first clinic specializing in addition to gaming - and in particular video and online computer games - opened this week in Amsterdam. "It can start with a Game Boy... From there, it can progress to multilevel games that aren't made to be won" Blue Security and their controversial Blue Frog program suffered a fatal blow when Blue Security CEO Eran Reshef concluded that the cost to the Internet of their ongoing battle with spammer PharmaMaster, and possibly others, was too high. Gary McKinnon, the hacker known as "Solo", who infamously hacked into NASA and Pentagon computers, and who claimed that once there he found dozens of other hackers, and proof of aliens, has lost his fight against extradition to the United States for prosecution. Chinese writer Yang Tianshu was arraigned this week for posts which he made to the Internet. Yang Tianshu was just released in January 2005 following a Christmas Eve, 2004 detention for similar writings. The Internet Patrol is maintained by the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy, and written by ISIPP President Anne P. Mitchell, Esq.. A study just released by Internet security device company SonicWALL reveals that an average of one in ten people who telecommuute do so in the nude. Yahoo is being accused of banning the name "Allah" as or in any Yahoo username, and it looks as if the accusations are true. Nobody has been able to register any username containing the string "allah". Online suicide pacts are leading to an increased number of suicides. These Internet suicide pacts encourage those who might otherwise not take that final step. In Japan, the problem of web suicide pacts has reached such a proportion that ISPs now watch for and report "suicide circles". The most recent outbreak of violence connected to the Danish publication of what Muslims consider to be a blasphemus cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed was provoked by rumours spread by SMS text messages. Today, February 3rd, is Black Worm Day, so called because today is the day that the nasty BlackWorm is posed to strike computers around the world, wiping data files willy nilly. Also known as the Kama Sutra worm, Mywife worm, and a host of other names, it is estimated that as many as 600,000 PCs are infected with the Black Worm. According to best estimates, as many as a half-million PCs world-wide are infected with a malicious "blackworm" code which is set to delete data from their hard drives on February 3rd. The worm, previously identified as the Kama Sutra worm, also known as Blackmal.E, Nyxem.E, Email-Worm.Win32.VB.bi, W32.Blackmal.E@mm worm, or W32/Nyxem-D, is set to wipe all Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF data from your hard drive! It's being delivered in email with subjects like "School girl fantasies gone bad," and "Re: sex video." Blackberry maker Research in Motion, also known as RIM, has suffered another blow in the patent infringement lawsuit brought by patent-holder NTP. As the walls close in on RIM, an injunction may be imminent. If you thought that SMS text messages were primarily the domain of teenagers who seem to speak in electronic tongues, using l33t speak, think again. Millennials is the new term for the generation after Gen Y - the netcentric, uberconnected generation. After months of hand-wringing, the international community, in the form of the United Nations, has backed off and left control of the master DNS files with ICANN and the United States. Referred to by some as iGod, Christian podcast shows and Roman Catholic podcasts from the Vatican have proven a huge hit. Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL and Gmail access is being denied to military personnel in the Navy and the Marines who are stationed overseas. The military has blocked access from all government-owned computers, citing concerns about computer security and viruses. The line in the sand has been drawn, and that line is the Internet. The world wide web has become embroiled in a world wide custody battle over who will control the Internet. Earlier this year, as other countries' grumblings became outright cries ... Chinese Troops Have Invaded Okinawa, said the headlines on the Yahoo site. Only, it wasn't really a Yahoo site, and it wasn't true. Talk about people doing stupid things! How stupid do you have to be to make a death threat against an officer who is investigating you? Spammer stupid! Lazy tea lovers, these tea kettles are just for you! The SMS tea kettle can be turned on remotely by sending it a text message! Free ringtones or pay-for-play ringtones, either way, ringtone downloads have surpassed music downloads for many bands, and now account for more than 10% of the global music market! The BagleDI-U trojan is showing up in a lot of places this week. Being called Bagle.cd or Bagle.da, and hidden in an attached file called either "price_new.zip", "price2.zip" or "09_price.zip", it's turning up all over the place. Yusufali-A is a new trojan worm which censors web sites by minimizing your browser window and displaying a verse from the Koran which includes the phrase "Yusufali: Know, therefore, that there is no god but Allah, and ask forgiveness for they fault, and for the men and women who believe" A Korean man has hung himself while video chatting with his girlfriend. After the two got into an online argument, police say, the young man suddenly got up, and hung himself while his girlfriend was watching. Wullik.B (W32.Wullik.B@mm) has infected the Zen Neeon MP3 player. Creative says that nearly 4,000 of the Zen Neeon MP3 players were shipped with the worm, and has issued a recall. Rapex is a new anti-rape device which is worn like a diaphragm, only it has sharp teeth which clamp down on any foreign object. Your online resume may be ripe for a new scam by identity thieves in which they simply lift all of your personal information from your resume and assume your identity. Movies may be available simultaneously in the theaters and on DVD as studios contemplate earlier release dates for DVDs in an effort to get the jump on movie pirating. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the Motion Picture Association has gotten an open search warrant for the entire city of New Delhi, India. The Wakamaru Robot is a human child shaped robot which will house sit for you when you are away. The first latchkey robot! Cellular phones get a power boost from a hamster and his wheel, as a British teenager invents the first recorded hamster-powered cellular phone charger. A new survey says that women have safer web surfing and Internet security habits than do men. Some question these findings, while others point out that neither is being particularly safe. The Zobot Botzor.exe (a/k/a worm-rbot.cbq, rbot.cbq, and rbot.ebq) and Mytob worm authors are believed to have been arrested in Turkey and Morroco. Authorities in both countries, in cooperation with the FBI and Microsoft, arrested Farid Essebar and Atilla Ekici, using online nicknames Diab10 and Coder, who are believed to have authored the worms. Spyware which redirects a user's computer to a particular website is not uncommon, and may be quite lucrative. But can lead to jail. Robots that house-sit while you are away! And they even will call you and send you a video of what's going on in your house! Bluecasting has been accused of Bluetooth spamming, and tries to explain why what they do is different. Sister Furong, whose real name is Shi Hengxia, and who goes by the Chinese "Furong Jiejie" (which means "Sister Furong", which in turn means "Sister Hibiscus" or "Sister Lotus", depending upon to which interpretation you adhere), may not be a household name here ... The new proposed TLD (top level domain), .XXX, has run into fierce opposition from President Bush and his administration, along with conservative groups and even governments around the world. The .XXX top level domain, which has already been preliminarily approved by ICANN, is to ... The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has just released the results of a three-month long probe during which they confirmed that there has been a boon in the trading of both endangered species, and endangered animal parts (sigh), in online markets. On eBay ... This is pretty interesting stuff. According to Iraq Museum International, it has detected a pattern of what it calls "eBay sniping", in which bids are intentionally and artificially inflated to ensure that a legitimate bidder pays top dollar, and has managed to ... I've received a lot of questions asking what Baidu is, and why all the hoopla over Baidu? Well, Baidu (Nasdaq symbol "BIDU" - more on that in a moment) is the Chinese search engine which is being tauted as the next Google, and ... Apparently despairing of what is happening to Chinese youth as a result of violent online games (can't wait for Aunty's groupie, Kailee, to chime in here), the Chinese government has said that from now on, minors are prohibited from playing games which ... It seems that "Firefly" is a popular name for small, portable devices this month. First we had the Firefly cell phone for children, and now we have the Firefly "145 g unguided projectile" ballistic camera. Yep, you load this little baby into a ... The below which came across Aunty's desk today is somewhat dense to read, but the bottom line is that they are suggesting what is being called a "reverse 911" - that mobile communications devices are the next new line of defense for citizens ... It had to happen. With pay-per-jolly phone centers, adult-content Internet sites, and all of the other services to which those of a mind can avail themselves, it's only surprising that it took someone this long to launch it: the mobile porn ... The Knesset, Israel's parliament, has just passed a tough new law aimed at spam, unsolicited text messages, and junk faxes. The new law requires a recipient's opt-in, meaning that a commercial message must be solicited - the recipient must have agreed to ... Argentine authorites have arrested fifteen people in a multinational phishing scam, and, separately, the U.S. FBI has arrested 8 people in a global online piracy investigation, spokespersons for the agencies have said. In the phishing scam, which was truly international, police arrested suspects from ... Nigeria really seems to be doing all the right things to bring under some semblence of control the flood of financial scams which originate within its borders, including the infamous "419 spam scam". Earlier this month the Nigerian courts sentenced a ... China has been in the news with relation to the Internet a lot of late. They recently joined the anti-spam "London Plan", have expanded their Internet offerings to their citizens with MSN Spaces' Chinese portal (which admits to censoring in China), and, ... Microsoft came out this week with a statement in strong support of DR-CAFTA (Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement). Here is the statement which came to Aunty's attention: WASHINGTON, July 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Today's passage of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) in the ... Hacking and politics have contrived to make strange bedfellows. According to a report by the British news organization, The Sun, hackers have come forward and started to take down web sites which are fomenting terrorism, and inciting terrorist acts - something ... Scam baiting - the act of leading scammers on a wild goose chase - has been raised to a new art form with the advent of the Internet, and Internet scammers. And none more so (or more deservingly) than the so-called 419 ... It is not something which could be done in the United States, what with the First Amendment and all; and whether that is for the better or not is a debate to be had elsewhere. But the British government has announced plans ... It's the ultimate sanction - the death penalty. To a spammer. Oh, it wasn't handed out by a court of law, in fact in the country in which it occurred, Russia, there is no law against spamming at all. However, Russian spammer ... Governments around the world are using various methods to crack down on Internet porn in general, and that involving children in particular, and the United States is considering the Internet Safety and Child Protection Act of 2005 (more about that in a minute). The ... In what is being hailed as one of the largest spam&scam busts of the decade, and the biggest 419 bust in history, the FBI and Spanish police have collaborated to arrest three hundred and ten (that's right, 310) people in Spain, all of ... In what has been seen by some as an unusual move, but may be a sign of times to come, the Army Times has posted on its website video footage of a terrorist sniper attack in Iraq which resulted in the wounding of an American soldier. Is it a case of sour grapes, or good business? Microsoft this week has sued Google. Not over technology or copyright. Nope. Over poaching one of their top executives, Executive Vice President Kai-Fu Lee. It's no secret that Microsoft has ... We've all seen variations on the theme. "I am Mariam Abacha, widow of the late Nigerian head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha. After the death of my husband who died mysteriously..." They always end with a plea for you to help them ... Ever since the FCC approved wireless Internet access on U.S. flights, the promise of fly-fi on domestic flights has titillated U.S. passengers. Up until then, fly-fi had eluded domestic U.S. flights, although fly-fi has been available on European and Asian flights for ... Every year Security Space puts out a report on the top ISPs, measured by number of web servers hosted on the ISP's networks. Who do you think that the top three ISPs are? Well, if you said MSN, AOL and/or Earthlink, well, you'd ... Remember that study that said that Internet addiction was not a big factor in online gaming? Well maybe Internet addiction itself isn't, but surely online gaming addiction has to be a factor in the rise in issues surrounding the "ownership" of online ... Gary McKinnon, the extra-terrestrial-seeking Nasa hacker who was apprehended last month, has explained how he managed to hack into Nasa's computers, along with those of several other government agencies, and what he found there. According to the 39-year old ... A new study released in the UK this week indicates that DVR (digital video recorders, such as the Tivo and the ReplayTV) owners fast forward through commercials. Well, duh. Apparently this is a surprise, although to whom, Aunty can't imagine. I mean, why wouldn't you fast ... A high school student has been identified as the mastermind behind a phishing scheme involving a fake banking website. According to authorities in Korea, the teenager, identified only by his surname 'Kim', managed to get personal and financial data from seventy-seven targets ... Nobody is exactly sure exactly why, but cell phone access has been intentionally turned off in the four major tunnels servicing New York City since the London terror bombings last week. The affected tunnels include the Holland Tunnel, the Lincoln Tunnel, the ... Like Christopher Pierson, the Tsunami Spammer before him, some sicko has decided to take advantage of the recent bombing in London, and to use them as a hook for his (or her) spam, which carries a Trojan horse to the victim's computer. The spam ... It turns out that crime does pay, after all. Informants, that is. Microsoft has announced that they will pay out a promised $250,000 USD reward to two informants who helped lead authorities to Sasser creator Sven Jaschan. The teenaged Jaschan was tried ... From our "Ultimate-Irony-Spam-Who-Cried-Wolf" department, Computerworld Australia is reporting that the first live test of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System, following a 6.7 earthquake off Northern Sumatra, failed miserably when the email alerts were blocked as spam. Aunty's readers will recall that immediately following ... Online security company MessageLabs is warning people that there has been a sudden sharp rise in Trojans assailing user inboxes, worldwide. In just one morning this week, MessageLabs says that they blocked 54,000 copies of new Downloader Trojans. The Download Trojans include Trojan ... Matt Clarkson was going to end poverty by willing the leaders at the G8 summit to do so. According to his recent press release, Clarkson planned to ask visitors to his website to "take part in a meditation to psychically influence leaders ... Have you heard about "Dog Poop Girl"? No, she's not some new style superhero, although I do believe that her partner, Dog Poop Man, has made an appearance on "Whose Line Is It Anyways?" (couldn't you just watch Ryan Stiles and Colin ... Sven Jaschan, the German teenager who created the Sasser worm, has now been convicted of creating Sasser, and has received a suspended sentence for his deeds, along with an order to perform community service. The twenty-one month suspended sentence is due in large part ... In a twist of irony, perhaps dichotomy (or perhaps both), the widespread usage of cell phones has turned out to be both a boon and a bane in the hours immediately following the terrorist attacks and explosions in London earlier today. As might be ... Sven Jaschan looks like, and by most accounts is, a typical teenager. That is, except for that small matter of bringing hundreds of thousands of computer systems around the world to a screeching halt - or at least a snail's paced crawl ... A short post-script for those interested in the continuing horror saga of Karla Homolka. Our readers will remember that Ms. Homolka was at the center of an extremely ugly murder trial, in which she and her lover were found guilty of ... As the battle heats up over whether to allow China to acquire major United States business holdings, China has turned its attention to another global business issue: spam. China has long been known as a major source of spam - indeed it ... SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 5 /PRNewswire/ -- McAfee, Inc., the leader in Intrusion Prevention and Security Risk Management solutions, today announced the results and availability of the McAfee(R) Virtual Criminology Report, which examines how a new class of criminals are using the Internet ... Al Gore may not have really invented the Internet, but we can still bloody well control it, the U.S. seems to be saying. In a gesture which is being seen by some as the U.S. thumbing its nose at the global Internet community, the ... In case you had any doubts about the global nature - the complex world-wide intricacies - of phishing networks, doubt no more. Case in point: Douglas Harvard and Lee Elwood were both sentenced in England this week to several years in jail ... But, soft! What light through yonder Windows breaks? Windows Mobile that is, as historic Stratford-on-Avon goes not only digital, but unwired to boot. With wireless hotspots, provided by British Telecom, throughout, Stratford-on-Avon has essentially created a fully connected wireless touris..er..town. Visitors can ... It seems that adult-themed websites in the United States aren't the only ones up in arms over the new U.S. "Age Records" rule for adult content websites, which became a reality this week. Not only are adult industry performers in Canada concerned about the ... Ok, forget drinking and carrying nude pictures of yourself on your cell phone. There is something even more stupid that you can do while drinking, with a cell phone. Drunk dialing, or drunk texting (text messaging) on your cell phone. This almost reads like one of those urban legends which you forward to a friend. Only it isn't. It really happened, to a friend of Aunty's, just last night. So he, and Aunty, would like to remind you: Don't Speed You've seen ... Earlier this week Aunty reported to you that Microsoft was censoring Chinese users of its new Chinese-based web and blogging portal. Today Silicon.com is reporting that Microsoft has confirmed this in an email to Silicon.com, in which Microsoft admits that it does maintain a ... There's a hue and cry being raised about Microsoft's new MSN portal in China not allowing Chinese users to access or share certain "forbidden" sites and ideas on the Internet. In particular, Chinese users of MSN's blogging service, MSN Spaces, are forbidden ... Robert Pickton. If his name means nothing to you, and you are not from Canada, that's no surprise. But if a Canadian court's press ban is successful, the name Robert Pickton won't mean much more to Canadian citizens either, despite the fact that he is the focus of a sensational murder trial in Vancouver right now. A new report out this week indicates that a phenomenon known as digital bullying, or "cyber bullying" is on the rise. According to a study by Reachon.com Permission-Based Email Marketing Service for small and large businesses, email has exceeded the phone as a favored communication tool for work and play. Findings show, 20% stated that checking emails first thing in the morning delayed them ... A catering company in a suburban Connecticut town eliminates its Yellow Pages advertising, which once ran to $12,000 a year, in favor of promoting its website. For a growing number of small businesses, local Internet marketing is proving cheaper, and more successful, than ... They are calling it the "Sex Degrees of Separation" website. Shagster.net is the Friendster or Linked-In of the intimate relationship. Slept with someone? Register them on Shagster.net. Slept with several, or several dozen someones? Register them all on ... McDonald's is introducing, I kid you not, downloadable music and ringtones under the golden arches. The offerings, available via Blaze Net kiosks, are McDonald's latest bid to stay current with the times. Other offerings include store-wide wifi, and McLattes. Said ... Talk about spyware versus spyware. Authorities in Isreal have arrested dozens of people, including high level executives of multinational corporations, in what increasingly is developing into the Internet Trojan spyware custerfluck of the year. Only on the Internet can a Trojan ... An Open Letter from the Federal Trade Commission to ISPs and Network Professionals: Dear Network professionals: We are writing on behalf of an international group of government agencies to request that your organization join a worldwide effort to prevent spammers from compromising consumers’ computers and ... Vonage(R) Rolls Out Free Calling to Puerto Rico EDISON, N.J., May 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Vonage, the leading provider of broadband phone service, today announced it is expanding its calling packages to include all calls to Puerto Rico. All Vonage customers, regardless of calling plan, can now ... Are you "Internet-illiterate"? If so, according to a new report, you could actually hinder your children or any future children you may have by your Internet illiteracy. The "children of Internet illiterate parents" report (our name, not theirs), was researched by ... Employees can't be fired for surfing porn on the job. That's the judgement of a court which has ruled that an employer who fired two employees caught surfing the web for porn on company time must not only reinstate them, but must ... Dealing with email, instant messages, and other messaging interruptions throughout the day is more damaging to one's IQ than either lack of sleep, or using marijuana, according to a recent study of more than 1,000 Brits conducted on behalf of HP. Several major airlines are now offering high speed Internet access to their passengers. Scandinavian airlines has just announced their offering on all long-haul routes, and Lufthansa's in-air high speed Internet access has been in place for the better part of a year. ... A recent survey of more than 30,000 blog readers, completed and sponsored by BlogAds, has found that nearly 25% of all blog readers are between the ages of 31 and 40, earning somewhere between $45,000 and $120,000 per year, with 21% earning $60,000 ... Is Tony Blair the world's newest political spammer? It's looking that way, as spam claiming to be from Tony Blair has hit thousands in England. Tony Blair's labour party actually admits sending the email, although they claim that it is ... Remember the man who used his webcam and free webcam software to catch a burgler? In a twist, a peeping Tom has been caught spying on girls using their own webcams, connected to their own computers. He was able to do ... Windows users rejoice! It's going to be a windowful day in the knighthood, as Bill Gates is knighted in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace tomorrow. During Bill's excellent adventure, the Queen herself will be bestowing upon him the title of Knight Commander ... A new report indicates that as many as forty-percent of all workers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany spend at least an hour a day on personal email, while at work. And most of the rest spend at ... Here's an interesting angle to the proliferation of online "pharmacies" - you know those places which have a doctor "on staff", so you can contact them, get a prescription for the medication of your choice, and then purchase said medication from them. There ... A group calling themselves "Artists Against 419" are asking Windows users to take part in their Mugu Marauder "art" project and take down the scam sites hosted by so-called "419 scammers". The "Mugu" in "Mugu Marauder" apparently is the term which the ... Russia's Information Technologies and Communications Minister, Leonid Reiman, has stated that Russia has no intention of putting into place any sort of anti-spam law. Reiman was quoted as saying "I am against any kinds of filters and a special regime on the ... Verizon Online is being sued by their subscribers for blocking incoming email from entire countries. From Across the Pond, courtesy of Chris Hunter over at Spamfo: An article reports how a user who made a tsunami relief donation using lynx on Solaris was arrested due to the event being 'unusual' with the site operator deeming this a potential hack ... From Across the Pond, courtesy of Chris Hunter over at Spamfo: Christopher Pierson, the sick man who sent a hoax mail to tsunami victim's friends and relatives, has been sentenced today to 6 months in prison. Spamfo published the article previously entitled 'Man pleads guilty ... From Across the Pond, at Spamfo: www.OptOutByDomain.com launches today in an attempt to rid domain name owners of spam. The aim of joining the registry is that a domain name owner will be able to opt out all domain email addresses at once; no ... It was the misfire heard around the world. The Register earlier this week reported that a German court had ruled that blocking email by content was illegal, stating that "The Higher Regional Court now has ruled that blocking email by content is unlawful as ... Some of you may recall that Aunty told you about Christopher Pierson, the British man who skulked about the tsunami disaster support boards, and wrote to those who were looking for loved ones feared lost in the disaster that, indeed, their loved ones ... Wired news makes a very good point this week in their analysis of the state of the art in India. On the one hand, India has become everybody's favourite place to outsource their tech support, and, issues of U.S. job drain aside, with good ... Word on the street was that Verizon for some reason known only to them had decided to block all (or at least nearly all) email which was not sent from inside of the good old USA. Rumours abound that Verizon.net, the ISP branch of telecommunications company Verizon, Inc., is blocking inbound email communications originating from outside of the United States It's like the Lycos "Make Love Not Spam" project, only with all that concentrated computing power being focussed on the public good. The World Community Grid is an organization whose lofty goal is to "create the world's largest public computing grid to tackle projects ... If you received spam today (and if you are reading this, and therefore by definition online, the odds are about 99.99% that you did), the odds are also very good that it came from the Good Old United States of America. Yes, that's right, ... Dutch telecom regulator OPTA has announced a crack down against several violators of EU anti-spam standards, including against both individuals and small businesses accused of spamming. EU (European Union) anti-spam standards are generally much tougher and tighter than are those in the United States, ... The United States Air Force has announced that it has gotten with the times. No longer prohibiting its members from using an instant messenger client to chat with people outside the company, such as loved ones back home, the Air Force has ... 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 ... 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 ... Lycos Europe is offering a controversial new screen saver to Windows users (and Mac, as well). Marketing it under the "Make Love, Not Spam" banner, the screensaver is designed to send requests to view a known spam source's website. The idea is that when a ... The newest of the sinsister worm types of viruses, Sasser, has attacked Windows-based computers around the world. Even more insidious than its earlier siblings, Sasser scans the Internet for computers with the Microsoft security flaw which allows it to do its dirty work, and ... |
||||||
About TIP About Anne
Search Categories
KingofthePaupers: Jct: There’s nothing wrong with small denomination California State IOUs if I or anyone else can pay their taxes with them. When Argentina’s government workers read Flexispy Review: @ Martin Curry - Unquestionably the Government have the ability to listen in on your Cell Phone through remote activation - so in theory it read Joe: Since you are dealing with politicians, it is really a combination of arrogance and stupidity. read Piewrre ML: And the answer is SO simple! I really query the adequacy of state legislators to do their jobs! Granted, it would required agreement read bigjohn756: Do we have to choose between arrogance or ignorance? How about plain stupidity? It takes no thinking ability to be congressman or to read MartinCurry: I have a guy who claims he is ex-cia tracking my family phones to find material to use against me and my loved ones. Can read andrew: Hi there lve receaved one of these emails and l got him or her tagging the line at the momment what steps can l take read
Search |
Search
Last 3 Articles
Top Ten Articles
Full List of Categories
Amazon
|
