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Another Teen Who Stands Up to School Gets in Hot Water Over Internet Antics

Aunty’s dear readers will remember the story of Eliazar Velasquez, the high school student who caught his principal smoking – on camera – and posted the evidence to the Internet. Velasquez was suspended for his trouble, although he was ultimately reinstated. Now another high school student, Conrad Sykes, of Lewis…

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Reader Has Novel Idea – Poll: Could it Work?

Gentle Reader Wolfjam has a novel idea: “It seems to me that if we were to make a few simple changes we could pretty well eliminate spam. First, let’s look at what the spammers have going for them… 1. They can remain anonymous by using trojans, domains that expire, etc….

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Numa Numa Dance Contest – Who Will Be the Next Gary Brolsma?

A Numa Numa dance contest – that’s what’s needed. Aunty’s colleague was right. Judging by the response that the Numa Numa dance has received, the way that the music is so infectious – yes, a Numa Numa dance contest is just the ticket! For those of you late to the…

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Numa Numa Dance: Webcam + Lip Sync = Gary Brolsma, Internet Star

Gary Brolsma obviously didn’t read our cautionary tale about the teenager whose home movie of himself having sex with his girlfriend up on the Internet. Or, maybe he did. But what Gary Brolsma recorded himself doing has piqued the interest of people more than if he was having sex. Even…

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Master Card Turns to SMS Messages to Combat Fraud

Here’s an interesting scenario: Someone somehow manages to get your credit card number (of course you would never fall for a phisher’s bait… your virus, spyware and firewall software are all up-to-date… you don’t leave your card lying around… and who uses paper credit card transaction receipts any more to…

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Sonny Outlook for Peachy Anti-Spam Law in Georgia

Georgia’s Internet citizenry got a treat yesterday as Governor Sonny Perdue introduced legislation aimed at making spamming the good citizens of Georgia (or, indeed, by the good citizens of Georgia) a criminal offense. The proposed legislation, known as the “Georgia Slam Spam E-mail Act” (gotta work on those acronyms, Mr….

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Microsoft Offers Free Anti-Spyware to Windows Users

Consider it an act of contrition, largesse, or just good business sense, but Microsoft is making available its new anti-spyware software free to Windows users. Having acquired anti-spyware maker Giant Company last month, it was anticipated that Microsoft would enfold a spyware fighting product into its offerings, but that it…

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This Site Will Scare You, But In a Good Way

AuditMyPC.com is a website which offers a host of free services designed to help you to secure your PC. Using readily available diagnostic tools and your Internet connection, the AuditMyPC.com site will tell you exactly what security holes you have open, Windows patches which you are missing, spyware which is…

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Spammers Want Email Addresses? Let’s Give Them Some!

The good folks over at AuditMyPC.com have a very interesting idea. Spammers are of course known for harvesting email addresses from websites, and then using those email addresses to build email lists, which they then sell to other spammers. Odds are that spammers are crawling all over your website right…

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AOL Offers New Spam and Virus Resistant Software for New Year

America Online (AOL), one of the largest Internet Service Providers in the United States, if not in the universe, is sticking it to spammers again, this time by offering an updated version of its software which is designed to be more spam, spyware, and virus proof than previous versions. AOL…

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Use Your (Windows) Power for Good

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 that benefit humanity”. They do this…

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Windows Anti-Phishing Tool Free from Netcraft

Many of you have heard Aunty pile accolades on anti-spam program Cloudmark for their unique and highly effective way of stopping spam for their users: they have a network of several dozens of thousands of “reporters”, and when a certain number of them all report back to the Cloudmark mothership…

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Trend Micro Offers Free Virus and Spam Checker for Cell Phones

Anti-virus leader Trend Micro has announced that they are offering a free virus and spam checker for mobile phones. With more and more people carrying an almost dizzying array of increasingly sophisticated “Smart Phones”, many analysts see cell phones as the next frontier for virus writers. And of course SMS…

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The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics

The Computer Ethics Institute is part and parcel of the Brookings Information Technology Services, a division of the world-famous Brookings Institution in Washington D.C.. Tracing its origins back to 1916, the Brookings Institution is often at the fore of public policy research and discourse. Back in 1992, Dr. Ramon Barquin,…

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This List Tells You Who Is Advertising in Spam

The Internet Patrol is a big fan of that section of CAN-SPAM which allows for prosecution of the people who are advertising in spam, in addition to those who are sending the spam. We have long said that going after the advertisers makes a lot of sense, and is one…