July 2002 Archive

31 July 2002

Philip Kaplan, the creator of FuckedCompany.com, is rolling out a new site called InternalMemos.com. On it, readers can sample some of the more than 800 examples of internal business correspondence sent to Mr Kaplan over the last three years by aggrieved employees of various companies.

The Recording Industry Association of America's web site was unreachable over the weekend due to a denial-of-service attack. The apparently deliberate overload rendered the RIAA.org site unavailable for portions of four days and came after the group endorsed legislation to allow copyright holders to disrupt peer-to-peer networks.

Australian businesses are well placed for attacking the Asia-Pacific broadband market if they play to their strengths, but are being hindered by the low penetration of Australian broadband. Perhaps it has something to do with Telstra's continual problems involving broadband applications going missing and substantial delays in connection times.

In South Australia's outback, history has been made with a team from the University of Queensland successfully launching their supersonic air-breathing scramjet engine atop a rocket. Until yesterday morning no organisation, including NASA in the United States, has been able to successfully launch a scramjet — an air-breathing supersonic engine.

30 July 2002

Like other researchers who've backed down for fears of Hollywood reprisals, open-source guru Bruce Perens said he would not include details about how to circumvent DVD player controls in an open-source presentation.

Biologists and technologists at the University of California, Berkeley have spent the past four years developing a tiny robot, called the Micromechanical Flying Insect, that they say will one day fly like a fly.

In a misguided fit of patriotism mere weeks after the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks, a corporate employee handed over the records — almost literally, the grocery lists — to federal investigators from three agencies that had never even requested them. In a flash, the most basic of exchanges became fodder for the Patriot Act.

For more than 20 years, FBI headquarters in Washington knew that its Boston agents were using hit men and mob leaders as informants and shielding them from prosecution for serious crimes including murder. Until now, the still-unravelling Boston FBI scandal has been portrayed largely as the work of a handful of local agents — mavericks willing to deal with the devil to bring down a Mafia family. But documents have been obtained that directly connect FBI headquarters to a pattern of collusion with notorious killers.

29 July 2002

Afraid that Peru may adopt a bill decreeing the use of open-source software in all government systems, Microsoft apparently enlisted the American ambassador in Lima to help try and convince the Peruvians to kill the legislation.

Makers of Australian digital-TV set-top boxes have rejected calls for dual-tuner boxes, which give free-to-air and pay-TV networks separate gateways to viewers' homes.

As part of a series of new storage policies aimed at driving more people toward its paid services, Microsoft has instituted a plan to delete sent Hotmail messages that are more than 30 days old. Early last week, it began erasing all messages in subscribers' Sent file transmitted before June 16.

A web site invites visitors to donate selflessly to Karyn, a struggling 26-year-old resident of Brooklyn Heights. And they do. I can't believe so many morons are willing to part with money for a brainless bimbo with a credit card addiction.

28 July 2002

Owners of PlayStation consoles who modify their machines to play games bought overseas have had a win in the Federal Court. Sony Computer Entertainment has failed in its claim that 'chipping' breaks copyright laws.

IBM and Linux combined represent a threat and inspiration as Microsoft drives into enterprise computing. Computing giant IBM wages war against Microsoft in lucrative corporate accounts while Linux, the low-coast threat to Windows, wins supporters in fertile developer communities.

A Houston computer security analyst has been charged with hacking after demonstrating the insecurity of a county courts wireless LAN. Stefan Puffer, 33, was indicted by a Grand Jury with two counts of fraud for allegedly breaking into Harris County district clerk's wireless computer system. It's believed to be the first case of its kind in the US.

One of the more amusing displays that was on display at Siggraph was a sword-fighting simulator that used a virtual reality headset along with a 'virtual sword' that had two gyro motors running it that allowed for tactile force feedback.

27 July 2002

Arcade in a Box is essentially a PC ready to play MAME, but built into a console with true arcade parts for the buttons and joystick for a more authentic arcade video game experience. It's not quite as realistic as, say building your own cabinet, but it definitely is a lot less time consuming.

Princeton officials entered the Yale Online web site on several occasions and viewed admissions decisions. Princeton officials claim they were simply researching security for their own web site.

The Federal Government is under fire for its decision to vote against a new United Nations protocol against torture. The protocol calls for independent visits to prisons as a way of halting torture. Australia was one of eight countries to vote against the protocol, while the United States abstained, having earlier expressed its opposition to the protocol.

Saddam Hussein blames western sanctions for the dying children of Iraq. But the only Iraqis who can speak openly — those in the safe haven of Iraqi Kurdistan — blame Baghdad. But can the Father of the Iraqi nation really be sacrificing his children?

26 July 2002

Campaign group StopEsso said this week it would move its French language web site to an American internet provider after a court in France ruled it could not continue using its logo on the site.

Some people are trying to reduce their electronic presence, and discovering that doing so is not as simple as it would seem. Seems these people forgot that they were the idiots that published the data online in the first place.

American defence contractors, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, are developing a 100-kilowatt infrared laser weapon for the F35 Joint Strike Fighter that may be powerful enough to blind people on the ground, even if they are relatively far from the target.

Israeli doctors have discovered a gruesome new way to catch hepatitis and possibly other blood-borne diseases — from the flying bone fragments of suicide bombers.

25 July 2002

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman is currently evaluating Telstra's ADSL service level agreement, as customers of the network continue to suffer lengthy outages.

SkyTower, a US-based technology company, is planning to launch crewless solar-powered airplanes that would provide entire cities with broadband Internet access and 3G mobile services coming from 70,000 feet above the ground.

A flaw in the way annual software usage statistics are compiled may have led to legal distribution of open-source programs being lumped with illegal trafficking in desktop applications, inflating losses to industry through 'phantom' piracy. The annual software piracy statistics — published by trade groups the US Business Software Alliance and Business Software Association of Australia — are compiled from several sources but none take into account the growing use of open-source desktop applications.

Todd, a young black Labrador, paddled for 10 miles over six hours, dodging ferries, oil tankers and yachts to reach land after falling overboard from his master's boat off the southern English coast.

24 July 2002

It seems as if the JPEG Committee has noticed the recent patent fuss, and is working on the prior art angle. Good to know that even though there's a new standard, the committee is standing by their previous work. Meanwhile, the ISO standards body will take the unprecedented step of withdrawing the JPEG image format as a formal standard if Forgent Networks, a small Texan company, continues to demand royalties on a seventeen-year old patent.

Hackers will be unable to attack Web sites protected by a new security system unless they can change the laws of physics, according to Naoto Takano, chief executive officer of Scarabs, a Japanese company. The company claims that it has developed a hard disk with two heads that prevents disk files published on the Web from being altered by hackers.

Request Broadband has launched a broadband VPN service that requires the installation of no additional equipment at customers' premises, bringing cost savings of 40 or 50%.

Voters in San Francisco will decide this fall whether the city should grow its own marijuana. Under a measure that will be on the ballot in November, city officials would explore growing pot and distributing it to seriously ill patients who have permission from their doctors. Supporters said such a program on city-owned land could double as agriculture job training for the unemployed.

23 July 2002

The ACLU recently had a study done that suggests that broadband access is a threat to internet freedom. Their study focuses on the control available to broadband providers who don't have to deal with the same level of competition or regulation as ISP providers. The result is the ability to radically control internet access combined with the omnipresent corporate incentive for profit, whatever the cost to free speech.

Privacy International is questioning the use of fingerprinting technologies by UK schools for library purposes and the role of the Office of the Information Commissioner in reviewing the technology. The practice came to light after a parent discovered that a school had obtained her child's print without consent.

The Federal Government is attempting to change freedom of information legislation to prevent the public discovering that Internet censorship laws have failed, according to civil liberties group Electronic Frontiers Australia.

With last week's resignation of Chief Operating Officer Robert Pittman, the installation of new top-tier management with deep Time Warner ties, and a restructured corporate hierarchy that reduces a humbled AOL to a unit within a division, AOL Time Warner Inc is being genetically reverse-engineered to bear Time Warner markers.

22 July 2002

While open-source software's reputation for security has taken a hit lately, Microsoft's Palladium presents itself as an opportunity to improve security by eliminating entire classes of potential exploits. However, Palladium cannot protect us from most security threats — and its aim may be to eliminate open-source software on commodity hardware.

The great transition that is taking place on the Internet — from free to fee — is now gathering speed. And there are no grassroots efforts on the Web to stop it. The Internet army, which is enormous, hasn't been engaged or conscripted.

The PlayStation 3 could conquer the home-entertainment and computing markets — if the chip inside it can deliver 1,000-fold processing improvements.

A British couple are laying claim to the best-travelled pet in the world after their cat, Ozzy, hid in the hold of a passenger jet and clocked up 63,000 miles.

21 July 2002

China is set to develop a Windows clone equivalent to Win 98, with full compatibility with Office 2000 and Word. Apparently, 18 companies and universities have been working on the two initiatives, with a 1.0 version supposedly already released to certain government offices.

Hitachi has begun selling a water-cooled notebook computer in Japan. The machine runs a 1.8GHz mobile Pentium 4, and has a flexible tube which carries water over the chips in order to dissipate heat.

Roll up, flexible televisions, akin to the melting watches of Salvador Dali's surreal landscapes, have become possible thanks to a glowing plastic compound perfected in the laboratories of Britain's Cambridge Display Technology.

Telstra ADSL customers across Queensland, ACT and Victoria felt the affects of unexplained technical glitches that saw 400 NSW subscribers knocked off line early Friday.

20 July 2002

Forgent Networks, a video conferencing company based in Austin, Texas says it's going to pursue royalties on the transmission of JPEG images. And it's already found a licensee: Sony Corporation.

Like many companies near seismic faults in Silicon Valley, eBay has emergency plans in case an earthquake destroys critical Internet connections. But these days another kind of tremor is a more imminent danger. The costly disruption or slowdown of service because of financially strapped telecommunication providers is the latest major concern for companies.

ATS Automation Tooling Systems has developed solar cells that will slash the cost of solar power, holding out the possibility of a revolution in the generation of clean, renewable energy.

Rephah Berg, a California woman who spends her spare time crafting slogans for lapel buttons has won the 2002 Bulwer-Lytton bad writing award for a piece which compared a faltering relationship to a balky roll of toilet paper.

19 July 2002

The RIAA has begun pressing for anti-copying technology in future digital radio standards. While enthusiasts of free software disrupted a Commerce Department meeting, insisting on their right to debate the entertainment industry over anti-copying technologies.

In one of the toughest sentences for online auction fraud, Thomas Houser was sentenced to 12 years in prison for defrauding hundreds of shoppers on eBay and Yahoo auction sites.

Mobile phone users in America wishing they could keep their phone number when they switch carriers will have to wait another year for that option to become reality. Seems Australia got it's finger out on the number portability issue, far quicker than the yanks.

Paul Jocelyn, 37, of Albertville, Minnesota approached a bull bison and tried to get the animal to raise its head for a photograph on Saturday near the Old Faithful Geyser at Yellowstone National Park. For his troubles, he received a puncture wound in his inner right thigh as well as scrapes and bruises. Criminal charges of harassing wildlife are pending against the man, no action will be taken against the bison.

18 July 2002

Nick Pelis has integrated two of the greatest pieces of hardware into one convenient case. This is the most important innovation in case design since the internal hard drive... The Caffeine Machine.

Tom Lyons argues persuasively that the incumbent competitors might be incapable of delivering an utility IP network. Competition in such commodity markets encourages the breaking of connectivity, 'Connectivity is the fundamental service of the Internet, yet it is connectivity that suffers first when network providers compete for users and services'. Thus he proposes the Institute for the Promotion of the Internet Protocol Utility.

The Norwegian Government has dropped their contract with Microsoft. Microsoft had an exclusive deal with national and regional government. Administration Secretary Victor Norman states that 'we feel that our contract with Microsoft in reality has given Microsoft a monopoly in a field where competition would serve us better'.

To protect users from malicious code, Yahoo uses an automated filter to swap out a handful of words such as 'mocha' that pertain to JavaScript. The reason is that e-mail sent in a form known as 'Web enhanced' can contain JavaScript instructions that can run programs on the recipient's PC.

17 July 2002

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Cyber Security Enhancement Act that would allow for life prison sentences for malicious computer hackers.

Scotchgard, the water and stain repellent, was a sturdy household name before environmental concerns led 3M to phase out production two years ago. Now the company is relaunching the brand with squeaky-clean replacement products and expanding into new areas, such as paint.

The Bush Administration aims to recruit millions of United States citizens as domestic informants in a program likely to alarm civil liberties groups.

The Navy won approval Monday to deploy two ships that use controversial low-frequency sonar to detect faraway submarines, despite continuing questions about whether the system's loud blasts will injure whales and other ocean animals.

16 July 2002

Gigi Sohn hopes that geeks have become so enraged by recent anti-piracy schemes that they'll finally want to fight back. The 40-year old lawyer, head of the Public Knowledge non-profit group, plans to recruit a ragtag band of technophiles and train them to become a corps of effective political activists on the Internet front.

Telcos have called for the Government not to extend the ACCC's powers in the telecommunications arena.

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock has been accused of having a conflict of interest regarding his responsibilities towards children in Australia's detention centres.

Russian space officials still are looking for the Demonstrator-2 inflatable space vehicle that was launched Friday from a nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea.

15 July 2002

The NSW Government will consult with its interstate counterparts before deciding whether to repeal controversial internet censorship legislation.

A US state Supreme Court ruled that a Minnesota woman who wrote a message on the internet critical of an Alabama scholar cannot be sued for libel in the scholar's home state.

If your superannuation is with the giant financial multinational ING, don't complain too loudly about the returns. One Sydney man did, and the company sued him for libel, and silenced him on pain of being put in prison.

Canada took a major step toward recognising same-sex couples on Friday when an Ontario court ruled that to do otherwise is unconstitutional.

14 July 2002

A growing number of Web surfers face a new uncertainty when they hit the send button; Will the e-mail get through? Anti-spam programs are great, but they still occasionally cause collateral damage.

New Idea, that bastion of Australian journalism, picked on the wrong man to tell tabloid tales about. Their story about James Packer had Daddy ensuring the issue was pulped.

US lawyer John Banzhaf was the first to sue the tobacco companies in the mid-Sixties. But now he wants to prosecute the junk food industry for making Americans obese. Has he bitten off more than he can chew?

McDonald's, the world's largest restaurant company, lost a legal bid to stop a British-based restauranteur from using the name McChina. Frank Yu Kwan Yuen opened the first McChina restaurant in Wimbledon, south-west London in 1991, under the names McChina Stir Fried and McChina Wok Away.

13 July 2002

The world's most popular software for scrambling sensitive e-mails — Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP — suffers from a programming flaw that could allow hackers to attack a user's computer and, in some circumstances, unscramble messages.

According to researchers at Syracuse University, Sharp's Linux-based handheld suffers from security holes that could let hackers grab private data off a corporate network.

The state of Washington filed suit yesterday against two Minnesota men under its anti-spam law, an action one privacy advocate called proof that the state is serious about stanching the flood of unsolicited e-mail threatening to drown the Internet. While the Federal Government's Department of Employment and Workplace Relations has been lambasted by Union officials for allegedly spamming employees with a 'hard sell' on a new enterprise agreement.

12 July 2002

A widely used plug-in for Microsoft's Outlook e-mail client that lets users encrypt and digitally sign messages has inadvertently weakened security and left the mail program open to attack.

An armoured car fitted with powerful laser beam designed to blast land mines and cluster bomblets from the battlefield will shortly begin testing at an army proving ground near Waynesville, Missouri.

Russell Pritchard III, an antiques dealer, was sentenced to a year in a prison and ordered to repay US$830,000 for staging phoney appraisals on the 'American Antiques Roadshow' and defrauding Civil War collectors.

A long-lost painting by Rubens, whose owner disliked it so much that she loaned it to a monastery, has fetched a world record auction price for an old master — almost £50 million.

11 July 2002

A few months back, Intel stood tall against a plan by the big media companies to seize control of our personal computers? Well, it turns out that Intel, Microsoft and a host of other technology companies are hard at work on next-generation computers that may give the media moguls pretty much what they want.

Free delivery will soon be a rarity for SMS. Mobile users will increasingly find themselves paying to receive text messages, as carriers pursue m-commerce plans.

Britons, among the heaviest users of cannabis in Europe, will soon be able to smoke dope without fear of arrest after the government relaxed its laws on the drug in the face of a dramatic rise in its use. And voters in Nevada, which up until last year had the US's strictest marijuana law, will decide in November whether to let adults legally possess small amounts of pot.

Steven Spielberg has disclosed that Star Wars helmsman George Lucas will not allow him make one of his hit sci-fi series.

10 July 2002

The Mr Floppy Tech Support Forum provides a venue where computer users can discuss common computer problems and receive input and advice from Peter McNally of Mr Floppy Computers, a veteran of over 20 years in the computer manufacture, service and support.

It is becoming harder for users of Microsoft-free systems and browsers to view the web. This seems to be a new call to arms from the standards groups, and it is something we should be thinking about. Without help from web designers, using browsers like Mozilla and Opera will effectively cut off our ability to view web sites correctly. Unfortunately there are far too many wankers out there who think the ability to use Dreamweaver and Flash means they're a web designer, these are the guys making life hard for everyone else.

A growing number of web sites are cracking down on other sites that post links without permission. Critics say it's a threat to the very nature of the web.

The new regulatory scheme for the Australian domain space has already found its first victims, with MelbourneIT reportedly terminating the contracts of up to 20 of its resellers.

09 July 2002

Baycorp Advantage claims to be close to linking its national fraud verification database system to the Roads and Traffic Authority's driver's license records.

.au Domain Administration, says it has lodged a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission against Internet Registry, claiming information it sent out in a recent mail out is incorrect — I got one of these spam mailouts today.

Australia's skilled migration program is failing IT professionals and needs urgent reform.

Richard Wool, a chemical engineer from the University of Delaware, filed a patent that described a new generation of microchips. The patent proposes to replace silicon — which has long served as the basis for microchips — with another material. And what might this mystery component be? Chicken feathers.

08 July 2002

In a sign that the internet sector may be nearing the end of its brutal shakeout, the number of shutdowns and bankruptcies by dotcom companies in the first half of this year fell 73% from the same period last year.

It's happened to American cities from Baltimore to Detroit. Now city officials in Stockholm fear the Swedish capital is about to have its name associated with a pornographic web site. The city is looking for ways to stop an adult entertainment company in Spain from launching a web site on a domain that uses the city's name.

A study by the World Wildlife Fund warns that the human race is plundering the planet at a pace that outstrips its capacity to support life. Earth's population will be forced to colonise two planets within 50 years if natural resources continue to be exploited at the current rate.

The supermarket supremos Woolworths and Coles are exerting enormous influence even beyond the farm gate, they have helped drive thousands of fruit and vegetable sellers to the wall and is forcing many farmers to get bigger or get out.

07 July 2002

The Simputer is a handheld computer running GNU/Linux starting at around $214 and is aiming to be an affordable computer for the third world that can be used even by the illiterate with its text-to-speech features, it will roll out next month.

Anti-virus vendor Sophos this week released its summary for the first six months of this year. All the viruses in its top 10 list were mass mailing Windows 32 viruses.

A fun project if you have a pile of Lego and a long weekend handy — a model trebuchet. Using coins for counterweights, it is able to throw a marble 16m or more.

Chinese Harry Potter fans have been blessed with the fifth book early — only it's not the real one. The title translates to 'Harry Potter And Leopard Walk Up To Dragon'. The story has Harry getting turned into a fat hairy dwarf and being void of his powers.

06 July 2002

Dodgy Perth-based direct marketing firm T3 Direct has more than doubled its claim for damages against an anti-spam activist and may escalate the matter to a higher court.

Sudden interest in wireless computing could result in two new players, Air Portal and Unwired, taking on SkyNetGlobal in providing internet access to hotels and airport lounges.

When you get sick of putting an aluminium case on your PC, and lighting up the keyboard, here's something you can do with your optical mouse.

According to a new survey; the man who wrecked his sports car by towing a boat, the fisherman who left his car infested with maggots and the overweight couple whose amorous engagements broke the suspension of their Mini — are all examples of how Britons mistreat their cars.

05 July 2002

Alanis Morissette, her attorneys and management, have been accused of engaging in a Cyber Piracy scheme, also known as Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, to steal the domain name alanis.net from Consumer.net.

Camera/Shy, a browser-based steganography application from Hacktivismo, will be released at the H2K2 Convention in New York City on 13 July. Camera/Shy was developed for democracy activists operating from behind national firewalls. It allows users to trade in banned content across the Internet.

Light can be turned into a glowing stream of liquid that splits into droplets and splatters off surfaces just like water. The researchers who've worked out how to do this say liquid light would be the ideal lifeblood for optical computing, where chips send light around optical circuits to process data.

The Sierra Railroad is planning to use diesel train locomotives to produce power for California. Each of the 48 engines are expected to produce 2.1 megawatts of power for a thousand hours each year. A key advantage to this plan is that since the PowerTrains are mobile, they can be taken to the areas that need power the most, so it doesn't have to be routed across the state through the power grid.

04 July 2002

Telstra has slapped a higher price tag on Bigpond Broadband ADSL installations, ahead of a self-installation option that the telco giant plans to introduce this week.

Record labels hell-bent on strangling unauthorised music copying on the Internet are considering widening their legal efforts to include lawsuits against individuals. Perhaps they should consider a revolutionary new recording format in a bid to help win the war on illegal file sharing.

Recent mutilations of cattle and horses in the Argentine countryside were the work of rodents, scientists said on Monday, not ritualistic slayings by extraterrestrials or vampires as some farmers feared.

The newest candidate challenging Secretary of State Katherine Harris in her bid for Congress is truly an underdog: a border collie mix. According to his owner and campaign manager, Wayne Genthner, Percy the dog is running as a write-in candidate in the Republican primary.

03 July 2002

The Federal Trade Commission has warned the operators of several major Internet search engines to make it clearer to their users when companies have paid to be included in Web search results.

Bored with making the same old food or plasma in your microwave? David Reid has discovered that there is a potential foundry in every kitchen. He's using his domestic microwave oven to melt iron, silver and bronze.

People across the Bay Area are committing random acts of literary kindness, leaving books in public places for strangers to find and then tracking the book's fate online at BookCrossing.

A blunt new report by Arab intellectuals commissioned by the United Nations, the Arab Human Development Report 2002, warns that Arab societies are being crippled by a lack of political freedom, the repression of women and an isolation from the world of ideas that stifles creativity.

02 July 2002

Rumours are rife throughout the local IT industry that multimedia communications company Spike, an arm of Spike Networks, is set to announce its closure. Those rumours have been confirmed, with the company announcing it has gone into voluntary administration.

The web sites of some of Australia's largest organisations have been given a poor report card from Nielsen Norman, the world's leading online usability think tank.

Stephen Crocker is something of an anomaly: an Internet pioneer who still has his cards in the start up game.

In United States vs Lucite ball containing lunar material, the Feds are suing to get back a moon rock from an American who brought it back from Honduras. They're alleging that this rock from the Apollo 17 mission is stolen property; ironic considering that NASA took something that wasn't under US jurisdiction.

01 July 2002

Civil liberties groups have warned the public and opposition parties to remain vigilant, despite the Senate's rejection of a controversial bill to amend the Telecommunications Interception Act.

Ford Motor Company has officially and unconditionally conceded its complete and perpetual loss on the merits of the FORD vs 2600 FuckGeneralMotors.com case.

Software bugs are not just annoying or inconvenient. They're expensive. According to a study by the US Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology, the bugs and glitches cost the US economy about US$59.5 billion a year.

A former South Australian potato farmer is seeking AU$70 million in damages from Coca Cola Amatil (CCA), company, Apend. Dubbed a David and Goliath battle, Riverland farmer Frank Perre took on CCA and won.

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