2005 June

In case you had any doubts about the global nature - the complex world-wide intricacies - of phishing networks, doubt no more.

But, soft! What light through yonder Windows breaks? Windows Mobile that is, as historic Stratford-on-Avon goes not only digital, but unwired to boot.

You may recall that earlier this year Aunty lectured you about click fraud, and even mentioned that Google was suing an outfit over their alleged click fraud. In fact, last month Aunty showed you a news release from a company which tracks click fraud, LostClicks.com

For all of you naysayers who insist that the Federal anti-spam law should be called the “YOU-CAN-SPAM” act instead of the CAN-SPAM act, and who say that it will never be a useful tool, Florida spammer Peter Moshou just might beg to differ.

Following this year’s rash of personal data security breaches, starting with the ChoicePoint and Lexis-Nexis leaks, and culiminating with the CardSystems hack and exposure of the credit card information of more than more than 40million, Democratic Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy has teamed up with Republican Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter to introduce the Personal Data Privacy […]

The newest version of the W32 Kedebe-F worm is playing on the natural curiousity and rubber-necking of the email-reading public, or as it’s known in the trade, “social engineering”.

Is the T-Mobile Sidekick About to Become the MCI Sidekick?
This news release just came across Aunty’s desk, and inquiring minds want to know!:
ASHBURN, Va., June 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — MCI, Inc. today announced a four-year agreement with Danger, Inc., provider of the hiptop(R) mobile Internet platform, the software and services that power […]

As Aunty reported last week, the personal data of 40 million consumers was compromised when CardSystems Solutions had their computer system hacked. CardSystems provides back-end processing for MasterCard and Visa transactions.

If California State Senator Joe Simitian gets his way, California will come to the fore of states passing laws which restrict the uses of the controversial RFID chips. South Dakota is presently considering a law which prohibits implanting an RFID chip in a human, and Rhode Island is currently reviewing a proposed law […]

Well, Aunty thought that she had heard of everything, but once again she was wrong. Move over, Internet urinal, and make room for the MP3 Toilet.

It seems that adult-themed websites in the United States aren’t the only ones up in arms over the new U.S. “Age Records” rule for adult content websites, which became a reality this week.

The Federal Trade Commission has announced that it has received a restraining order against and frozen the assets of TrustSoft and their SpyKiller program, a program which, the FTC says, was nothing more than a scam.

This almost reads like one of those urban legends which you forward to a friend. Only it isn’t. It really happened, to a friend of Aunty’s, just last night. So he, and Aunty, would like to remind you:

In case you were listening to the radio or televion news today, yes, you heard it right, and your ears were not deceiving you. The credit card information of 40 million MasterCard and Visa cardholders was compromised when someone hacked into the computers of Arizona-based CardSystems Solutions.

Oh, the sweet recursiveness of it all. A petition to “Save NPR and PBS” is making the rounds by email. And like the Craig Shergold’s Postcards and Mrs. Field’s Cookie Recipe emails, “Save NPR and PBS” emails have been around a long time. The first recorded sighting for the Save NPR […]

If you have been wondering whether RSS has negative implications and drawbacks, this is just about the right time to start seeing these characteristics emerge amidst passionate reactions from developers and users alike.
As a researcher and explorer of new and effective uses of new media technologies, I have been supporting use and adoption of RSS […]

This is an invitation for you to read about a meeting I attended in Geneva this past March at the International Telecommunications Union, or ITU. You may be aware that the ITU includes representation from 189 countries and works to create policies and standards to meet the needs of those member countries in a global […]

One of the things with which the Federal Trade Commission was charged under CAN-SPAM was determining whether and how to implement the requirement of including “ADV” in the subject line of unsolicited email.

Now here is a real irony: as Aunty reported here previously, Spam King Scott Richter has filed for bankruptcy.
Now his company, OptInRealBig.com must notify all potential creditors (that’s people to whom he owes money or whom believe that he owes them money) about the bankruptcy.

Robert Pickton. If his name means nothing to you, and you are not from Canada, that’s no surprise. But if a Canadian court’s press ban is successful, the name Robert Pickton won’t mean much more to Canadian citizens either, despite the fact that he is the focus of a sensational murder trial in […]