2004 December

Overpeer, a division of Loudeye, Inc., has been caught putting infected files on peer-to-peer filesharing networks, and putting attractive and likely sounding names on the files in order to induce users to download the files.
Thinking that they are downloading their favourite songs or other media files, the users only too late discover that the files […]

A U.S. Federal Court has ruled this week that the State of Minnesota (and by extension all states) cannot regulate Internet telephone usage, known as VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), in the same way that the states presently regulate traditional phone lines and usage.
This is bound to be good news for VoIP services such as […]

Timothy Leary would be proud. As a nation we are turning away from lurid sex displays in which women are debased and objectified, and turning towards drugs.
At least in our spam.
According AOL, and based on a recent analysis of their incoming spam (and they should know, they get a lot of it, […]

LokiTorrent, one of the latest targets of the Motion Picture Association of America’s legal crackdown on filesharing sites using the BitTorrent technology to allow users to download copyrighted movies, has vowed to fight the lawsuit, and is asking for donations to a legal fund to help defray an estimated $30,000 per month in legal fees.
According […]

Think that software pirating is just a problem for the big guys, like Microsoft, or maybe not even so much of a problem at all?
Try telling that to Nigel Cross, owner of Xequte.com, developers of a number of software packages including SmartPix Manager, Mega View, Ez Pix, and Diji Album, among others.
Unfortunately for Cross, one […]

Rumours abound that Verizon.net, the ISP branch of telecommunications company Verizon, Inc., is blocking inb0und email communications originating from outside of the United States.
Is they are or is they aint?
That’s quite an accusation.
However scores of Verizon users have claimed to be unable to receive email from… [Continued…]

After almost a full year of living under the foresight of the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003, a survey by MX Logic cleverly declares that Can-Spam didn’t.
According to MX Logic’s home page, 83.06% of all email transiting cyberspace now is spam. That’s a lot of spam to clog up […]

January 8th, 2005, is the deadline for Windows users to file a claim against Microsoft under the settlement in the class-action lawsuit by the State of California against the software giant.
The settlement, arising from a lawsuit in which it was claimed that Microsoft had violated California’a anti-trust law by charging too much for Windows 95 […]

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, and include a requirement that recipients must… [Continued…]

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, the spirit of entrepreneurism which made this country so great is alive […]

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 spam is already on the rise.
Dubbed […]

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 taken the bold step of embracing the technoloogy, and making it its own.
This […]

Internet giant America Online (AOL) has said that they are in beta testing with a new free webmail service, along the lines of Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail.
Dubbed “AOL Mail on the Web” (AMW? AOLMW?), it is already available to existing AOL members who registered to beta-test the product, and is expected to be opened to […]

In April of 2001, a little known international cooperative aimed at stopping online software piracy had toted up an impressive 120 searches in 27 of the United States, and in 11 other countries.
Dubbed “Operation Fastlink”, the project is billed by the U.S. Justice Department as “the largest multinational law enforcement action against online software piracy”.
International […]

SpamItBack is a software which you can download, and which claims to allow you to create a message which you’d like to get across to those who spam you, and to “target the spammers websites, online ordering forms, or any personal spam e-mail addresses that have been discovered, with your message, and makes sure it […]

There are just so many facets and angles to this story, it’s almost impossible to determine if there is a right and a wrong, let alone who is which.
Justin Ellsworth, of Wixom, Michigan, was killed last month while on foot patrol in Iraq.
John Ellsworth, the grieving father of the 20-year-old Marine, asked Yahoo to please […]

Earlier this week Aunty told you that the former AOL employee who stole the email addresses of 92 million AOL users, and then sold them to a spammer for $100,000, was due in Federal court and was going to plead “guilty” to charges that he violated CAN-SPAM. It was anticipated that Jerry Smathers would face […]

First it was spam - the junk email we all know and love to hate.
Then it was spim, which is spam sent by instant messenger (hence the “i m”).
Move over boys, and meet “spit”.
Spit is spam sent to a Voice Over IP (VoIP) connection, another name for which is “Internet telephony” (hence the “i t”).
And […]

Jerry Smathers, a former AOL employee who first made the news by stealing more than 92 million AOL user email addresses, and selling them to spammers, is now facing up to two years in prison for his misdeed.
Due in court in New York on Tuesday, it is anticipated that Smathers will plead guilty to violating […]

Network World Fusion Tests 41 Spam Filters, Here are the Results
10:28 pm, 12/20/2004   You are here: Top > Product Reviews > This Article Edit This
Network World Fusion has just released the results of its test of forty-one spam filters! Apparently when they put out the word that they would be reviewing spam filters, they […]