For the weird news of the day, here's a great article from Yahoo. Apparently this guy parleyed $800 into $350M with a series for 126 high-risk trades over the period of 2 weeks. When arrested, he claimed to be a time traveler from 2256

The US Federal Trade Commission has begun the process of going after a porn spammer who has amassed about 50,000 complaints (while apparently making about $1M in commissions) by sending spam with misleading subject lines. This is the latest in a series of spam-related actions taken by the FTC …

Industrial Light and Magic(ILM), George Lucas's special effects house, is reportedly using real-time preview capabilities to show the integration between CGI characters and the actors within seconds of the original take. An article from the Sydney Morning Herald gives some interesting details.

Networking products and Voice-over-IP (VoIP) manufacturer, Cisco is preparing to release a VoIP wireless phone that uses 802.11b (WaveLan) technology to communicate with the internet. According to an article from InfoWorld, the new phone (called the 7920) will be intended for LAN use in corporations, but there are talks …

A report by Wired from the 2003 New York International Auto Show discusses upcoming hybrid cars from various manufacturers, including an SUV from Ford. The Ford Escape Hybrid, to be sold to consumers in Summer of 2004, will reportedly get nearly 40 miles to the gallon, almost double the fuel …

The Washington Post reports in this article1 that the new Department of Homeland Security has announced their choice for Privacy Czar as Nuala O'Connor Kelly, former Double-Click Privacy Officer. Original link (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39211-2003Apr16.html) no longer available as of 2025-12-22. No reliable archive snapshot …

Titled "Cisco Support for Lawful Intercept In IP Networks", the IETF draft describes a mechanism to provide for "Lawful Intercept" (read wiretapping) in VoIP networks. Although it is supposed to only be used where authorized by legal authorities in a jurisdiction, significant questions arise on the internet where phone calls …

An article in The Register is reporting that a graduate student at the University of Michigan is moving his dissertation work offshore to servers outside of United States and to prevent access to the information from users coming from the United States, due to threats that his work may be …

Finnish cellular telephone manufacturer Nokia is planning on releasing a camera in the US this summer that will send its output directly to cellular telephones. Using the GSM (Global System for Mobile) system, the camera will respond to text messages by sending camera pictures to the sender's phone. An article …

At the RSA conference this week, leading network and computer security participants are meeting to discuss issues of importance from privacy to security. Among the discussions is a proposal to create the Generally Accepted Information Security Principles (GAISP) which would be the computer security equivalent of the Generally Accepted Accounting …

CNet is reporting in this article that the Consumers Union (non-profit publishers of Consumer Reports) and the Consumer Federation of America are up in arms over recent moves by cable companies to bundle their internet and cable services. At the heart of the matter is whether the companies are unfairly …

According to a transcript of an interview with a senior official at FWB, they are working on directly supporting 3D graphics cards in future versions of RealPC. The RealPC product has been out of the Mac picture for a few years, apparently due to an agreement with Connectix that expired …

An article in EETimes discusses comments made by Whitfield Diffe and Ronald Rivest about Microsoft's Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (formerly Palladium). They raise concerns about what this kind of "security" will mean in terms of computer and software ownership and other important issues. Diffe, in particular commented that this approach …

A great article from MacObserver tells the tale of Alan Ralsky, a purveyor of not-so-fine Spam who received a real-world dose of his own medicine. It appears that after a recent article about Alan, people started signing him up for physical junk mail and the post office has been delivering …

I'm tempted to agree with the analyst quoted in the article1 on CNet who commented about UPS's new Delivery Information Acquisition Device (DIAD) that "It reminded me of 'shock and awe. There are just so many different kinds of weapons, tools and technologies." The device connects to 6 networks …

Another in the long series of interesting RFID stories that we'll be seeing in the next few years. Wired is reporting that Benetton is planning on putting RFID (Radio Frequency ID) devices into its clothing. The intent is supposedly to allow for faster inventory and better theft prevention, but privacy …

An article in Wired tells of a comedian who likes to incorporate jokes about computers into his act. Not surprisingly, he is a bigoted Mac user. Says Scott Bruce, the comedian, "If someone says they don't use a Mac, I'll roast them. I give them a lot of crap. We …

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According to an article on CNet, Opera has decided that they need to make a Macintosh browser after all. Citing a new cross-platform development architecture, they indicate it is now easy for them to make a Macintosh version, so why not produce one (which I believe is what we said …

According to reports from SlashDot and an article from CNet, AOL has started to block personal mail servers running on its broadband lines.