It must be Friday!
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2006/10/12/tech-brock.html
Hackers steal personal information from Brock University computers
Last Updated: Thursday, October 12, 2006 8:34 AM ET The Canadian Press
The personal information — including some credit card and bank account numbers — of about 70,000 people who gave money to Brock University [But never will again... Bob]has been stolen from the school's computers by a hacker.
Terry Boak, Brock's vice-president academic, said the digital intruder had the secret passwords needed to access the file listing of possibly every individual to ever donate to the university.
"It wasn't just someone who hacked in by playing around with it," Boak said. "So, you start thinking about how these passwords were obtained."
Boak said the hacker tapped into the system on Sept. 22 at 5:27 p.m. ET, taking only four minutes to make off with the file containing thousands of names, birthdates and e-mail addresses.
About 90 credit card numbers and some 270 bank account details were also in the file.
Boak said those people were called within 24 hours, while the remaining thousands received a letter in the mail explaining what had happened.
He said the school didn't see the "value" in issuing a public announcement or news release about the breach because all those directly affected had already been notified. [So how did it leak? Bob]
Niagara Regional Police are investigating.
Something about horses and barn doors comes to mind... (Would you like this job after what happened to the previous owner?)
HP hires ethics and compliance officer
Jon Hoak to work with outside counsel on independent assessment of HP's investigative practices
By Robert Mullins, IDG News Service October 12, 2006
Hewlett-Packard Co. is hiring a chief ethics and compliance officer to make sure its businesses practices sullied by a boardroom spying scandal, remain on the straight and narrow.
HP Thursday announced the appointment of Jon Hoak, a former legal counsel for NCR Corp., to the ethics post, which is a vice presidency. Hoak will report to chief executive officer (CEO), president and chairman Mark Hurd, until a new HP general counsel is named. Hurd was CEO of NCR before being hired by HP in March 2005.
Hoak, 57, will be responsible for HP’s adherence to its Standards of Business Conduct and will work with Bart Schwartz, an outside counsel who was hired last month, in the wake of the scandal, to perform an independent assessment of HP's current investigative practices and develop future best practices, the technology company stated in a news release.
... Also Thursday, Forrester Research Inc. released a survey of chief information officers (CIOs) that showed little impact of the scandal on their willingness to do business with HP. [Why would CIOs care? Bob]
What are the odds in Los Vegas?
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/10/united_states_v.php
United States vs. Google
October 12, 2006
... With Google this week taking over YouTube, it seems like an opportune time to look forward to the prospect - entirely speculative, of course - of what could be the defining antitrust case of the Internet era: United States vs. Google.
... And yet, however pure its intentions, Google already has managed to seize a remarkable degree of control over the Internet. According to recent ComScore figures, it already holds a dominant 44 percent share of the web search market, more than its next two competitors, Yahoo and Microsoft, combined, and its share rises to 50% if you include AOL searches, which are subcontracted to Google. An RBC Capital Markets analyst recently predicted that Google's share will reach 70 percent. "The question, really," he wrote, "comes down to, 'How long could it take?'"
Google's AdSense ad-serving system, tightly integrated with the search engine, is even more dominant. It accounts for 62 percent of the market for search-based ads. That gives the company substantial control over the money flows throughout the vast non-retailing sector of the commercial internet.
With the YouTube buy, Google seizes a commanding 43 percent share of the web’s crowded and burgeoning video market.
“Hey Mom & Dad, look what I have for you! A subpoena!”
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/1715218&from=rss
School Official Sues Over MySpace Page
Posted by kdawson on Thursday October 12, @04:45PM from the their-kids'-keeper dept. The Internet The Courts
SoCal writes, "How much legal liability do parents have for what their kids do online? A lawsuit filed in Texas by a high-school assistant principal may give some answers. Some students she had disciplined set up a fake MySpace page in her name depicting her as a lesbian (which she happens not to be). In its coverage, Ars Technica notes that 'What sets this case apart from many other lawsuits filed over the content of blogs is that it doesn't target only the teenagers who created the site. It also argues that the parents were guilty of negligence by failing to supervise their children, and that they bear some of the responsibility for the defaming site.'"
The article links the Media Law Resource Center's resource tracking more than 50 cases now in the courts nationwide, in which bloggers have been sued for libel and related claims.
Another reason to sue Sony?
http://techdirt.com/articles/20061012/102307.shtml
Just As Gas Prices Are Coming Down, It Might Get Harder To Fuel Your Laptop
from the fill-up dept
This year has seen more than its fair share of laptop battery recalls and explosions, the fallout from which has hit computer manufacturers, business travellers and of course the battery makers themselves. The lack of breakthroughs in battery power had already been a major drag on computing, particularly mobile computing, so the whole thing has been rather fitting. It looks like the problem may compound itself as some manufacturers are warning of a laptop battery shortage to continue through the rest of the year and into next summer. Sony's massive recall is causing customers to wait an additional two months for orders to arrive, while competitors have no spare capacity to build more. [Now that's interesting... Bob] Eventually, things will get worked out, and the situation might even prompt more R&D into batteries. But in the meantime, if you see big lines at the Apple store, it might not be due to popularity of the new iPod, but rather an old fashioned buying panic.
http://techdirt.com/articles/20061013/004442.shtml
France, Italy And Austria May Get In Trouble For Banning Online Gambling
from the different-continents,-different-rules dept
While the US is going out of its way to ban online gambling, it appears that some European countries aren't going to have it that easy. The European Commission is threatening legal action against France, Italy and Austria for their own efforts to stop online gambling. Similar to the situation in the US where some online gambling executives have been arrested recently, France apparently arrested some online gambling execs as well. However, the European Commission charges that some of these activities may go against certain EU-wide laws that mandate open access to services throughout the EU. The specific problem here is that it appears these countries have state monopolies on gambling. So, they allow it, but only if they're the ones running it -- and that policy is what's causing the problems. In other words, the problem here isn't necessarily having to do with any sense of morality or protecting people, but more about who gets to profit from the gambling (though, of course, some would argue that's really what's at work here in the US as well).
I want one! How can you not smile when someone does something so strange! (You may as well ignore the translation...)
http://digg.com/mods/Portable_typewriter_laptop
Portable typewriter laptop
digitalgopher submitted by digitalgopher 15 hours 19 minutes ago (via http://www.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fironwork.jp%2Fmonkey_farm%2Fcomputer%2Fpc2.html&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF8 )
This really is a bizarra mod. It's a typewriter crossed with a laptop + a morse code keypad of sorts. [via make]
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