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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 09 Issue 47
Volume 9, Issue 47 Atari Online News, Etc. November 23, 2007
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2007
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Thomas Richter
Roger Burrows
To subscribe to A-ONE, change e-mail addresses, or unsubscribe,
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #0947 11/23/07
~ Web Deals Woo Shoppers ~ People Are Talking! ~ Spam Tidal Wave!
~ First Firefix 3 Beta! ~ PC Wins Code Challenge ~ Updated SCSI Drivers!
~ Online Harassment Woes ~ Holiday Cards Via Web! ~ Atari+++ 1.53 Out!
~ Storm Is Still Tricky! ~ Happy Thanksgiving All ~ Wii Most Wanted Widget!
-* Cybercrime Restitution Okayed *-
-* Net Could Run Out of Capacity Soon? *-
-* Using PayPal To Shop Non-PayPal Available! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
As per this time of the year - BURP! What a terrific Thanksgiving feast
this year! Ordinarily, I don't eat a large portion for our initial
sit-down turkey dinner. Quite frankly, after spending a good portion of
the day preparing the meal, I don't have much of an appetite when it
comes right down to the dinner. I know, it sounds weird. But this year,
I managed to dine on quite a dinner, and quite a bit! Sure, I paid for
it later in the evening, but it was worth it. Okay, so I had to loosen
the belt a notch or two, but I just had to have that second helping of
pumpkin pie!
For the first time in a number of years, we had company for our
Thanksgiving meal. My wife's mother joined us this year, and for the
weekend. It's been a nice addition, even if it's "the in-laws" come to
call! <grin> With all that's gone on these past couple of months, we
didn't have the heart to let her spend Thanksgiving alone.
So, what's up with "Black Friday"? Why "black"? Is it the one day that
helps put holiday sales up over the top (and "in the black")? Seems like
a desolate name for the alleged busiest holiday shopping day of the year!
Anyway, that's where my wife and mother-in-law are now - getting in some
early holiday shopping. Not me, I wasn't getting up at 4:00 a.m. to go
out and battle the madness - I did that, for the first time, last year!
Speaking of madness, what a horrible week for weather! Rain, cold, and
even a half-inch of snow! It's midday as I'm writing this - the sun is
shining brightly (finally!), but the temperature is barely above the
freezing mark! No golf for me today, nor am I going to weather the cold
for the sake of cleaning up more leaves! Sounds to me like a great day
to start picking at the turkey leftovers!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
Atari++ 1.53 Available for Download
A new release of the C++ atari emulator is available for download at its
usual location:
www.math.tu-berlin.de/~thor/atari++
This release fixes the ADC and SBC implementation in BCD mode if supplied
with non-BCD input. Furthermore, support for network mounted data is
better now, and I also addressed a keyboard issue that made some keys
effectively unreachable. As always, you find sources and binaries on the
page.
Have fun,
Thomas
Updated SCSI/Link Drivers Available
I've uploaded new versions of the SCSI/Link drivers for STiNG and
MintNet to the Anodyne Software web site; you can download them from
this URL:
http://www.anodynesoftware.com/ethernet/main.htm
The previous versions are still there, just in case ...
The fixes are as follows:
STiNG: Fixed bug that caused problems when the MAC address of the
SCSI/LINK changed, either due to replacing the device, or due to
overriding the default MAC address.
MintNet: Fix problem with ARP when using Daynaport firmware v1.4a.
Any problems, please let me know,
Roger Burrows
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Another week has come and gone, and I'm
sitting here after my Thanksgiving dinner, full of turkey and stuffing
and all the trimmings... cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy,
the freshly baked rolls and the all of the delicious desserts. Ya wanna
talk about opulence? I'm almost ashamed to mention the desserts we had.
Of course, they weren't MY desserts. We had dinner at my
sister-in-law's. So I guess I can blame her for the embarrassment of
riches. [grin]
Anyway, if you know anything at all about me, you know that I'm a
certified turkey fiend. Turkey is one of my favorite foods of all time.
Soooo.... I'll be making a turkey for just the two of us over the
weekend. I love turkey.
Of course, with just the two of us, I'll have lots of leftovers. There's
lots you can do with leftover turkey. There's turkey soup, turkey pot
pie, open-face turkey sandwiches (when I was a kid, just to be funny,
we'd call 'em open turkey face sandwiches... wasn't I adorable?), and
this year, I think I'm going to try spanish rice and beans with turkey
instead of chicken. I love rice and beans. I make it with chicken every
couple of months or so. I make what my wife calls a 'bucket-o-rice'. I
figure that, if chicken is good in rice and beans, turkey should work
too, right? I'll let you know. Oh, and I've been told by people who've
grown up with rice and beans that mine is pretty darned good.
I also want to make my annual appeal about donating food to the local
foodshare or soup kitchen. I meant to mention it last week, but I got
sidetracked. Anyway, more people think of donating the week before a
holiday, but how many think about donating the week after? And people
need food all year 'round, not just during the holidays. So drop off a
couple of cans of something, or that extra frozen turkey you've got
taking up space, or send 'em an envelope with a check for a couple of
bucks... it doesn't have to be much. It doesn't take a lot to put a
meal on a table, but there are times when the fates conspire against us
and keep it from happening for a lot of us. It's not just the wino or
the crack whore who has to scrape to get by, it's the guy working a
blue-collar job who watches a huge portion of his paycheck go toward
health insurance for he and his family, it's the two-income family that
has something unexpected happen and watches their savings disintegrate
before their eyes, and it's the family who's just had a hard time
making ends meet that gets one extra piece of bad luck.
In short, it's you or me with just one more bit of tough luck. So drop
off a little something to the local foodshare, soup kitchen or shelter,
huh?
Well, okay, let's get to the news, hints, tips and info from the UseNet.
From the comp-sys-atari-st NewsGroup
====================================
Roger Burrows posts this about his SCSI/Link drivers:
"I've uploaded new versions of the SCSI/Link drivers for STiNG and
MintNet to the Anodyne Software web site; you can download them from
this URL:
http://www.anodynesoftware.com/ethernet/main.htm
The previous versions are still there, just in case ...
The fixes are as follows:
STiNG: Fixed bug that caused problems when the MAC address of the
SCSI/LINK changed, either due to replacing the device, or due to
overriding the default MAC address.
MintNet: Fix problem with ARP when using Daynaport firmware v1.4a.
Any problems, please let me know!"
Over the last couple of columns, I've mentioned the speech that Jack
Tramiel is supposed to be giving. This week, Robert Bernardo tells us:
"The event, "The Impact of the Commodore 64: A 25-Year
Celebration", with Jack Tramiel is now listed at the Computer
History Museum's website at
http://www.computerhistory.org/events/"
Peter Schneider asks for info about BigDOS and TT-RAM:
"Since I replaced my TT-RAM card equipped with 32 MB by another one (64
MB) that a friend left to me, my TT resets every time after the AUTO
folder programs have been launched...
I wonder what BigDOS has to deal with my TT RAM. To explain: BigDOS
gives the feature (among others) to give access to drives beyond P:
when running TOS and usually comes along with HDDRIVER...
And I'm pretty sure it's BigDOS, for if I remove it from the AUTO
folder, I normally arrive on my TT's TOS desktop."
Jean-Luc Ceccoli tells Peter:
"If its place in the auto folder is correct, it might be caused by
its internal settings, that are supposed to be changed using a
small utility named setter. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't find
any version of this utility that could allow me to set it up. So
I finally gave up and removed it from the auto folder. :-(
I hope you'll be luckier."
Mark Bedingfield adds:
"Yes, it may work if you flag it to run in STram."
Peter replies:
"I had a closer look at these two cards. The one I've been using for 12
years now, is an aixTT with 32 MB. The card I was offered is magnumTT
with twice 32 MB.
So, for the moment, I fell back to 32 MB, but am able to exceed to
partitions beyond P.
But I don't give up hope that there is an expert to give me the correct
jumper settings (if that's the problem)."
Lonny Pursell supplies a helpful URL:
"http://dev-docs.atariforge.org/files/Magnum_TT.pdf"
Jean-Luc tries running the app in ST-RAM, and tells us:
"No - unfortunately - :-(
Still the same message :
-------------------- Quote start ----------------------
**** Unknown command. File damaged or use newer SETTER.
Aborted!
Konfiguration beendet. / Configuration completed.
--------------------- Quote end -----------------------
Though both setter and bigdos are flagged to run in ST-RAM.
I thought it might be due to the version of setter I own to be
compacted (who knows...), but, again, no.
It behaves the same on both my FalCT60 and TT, and either under
plain TOS or MagiC!"
Well folks, that's it for this week. I hope that there are more messages
for us to go through next week. But if there aren't, don't worry. I'm
sure I'll have something to babble on about.<G>
See ya next week. 'Till then, keep your ear to the ground, your eye on
the horizon, your shoulder to the wheel and your back to the wall. If
you can do that...
You must have been hell-on-wheels when it came to TWISTER, huh? <G>
Anyway, keep your ears open so you'll hear what they're saying when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Wii Most Wanted Widget In Winter!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Senators Urge Tougher Ratings!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Wii Is Most-Wanted Widget In Wintertime
Each holiday season, a couple hard-to-find toys send parents hunting from
store to store. And, each season, they're soon forgotten: Has your Elmo
gotten any tickles lately?
But this year, it looks like the gift everybody is looking for is the same
as last year: the Nintendo Wii.
A year after its launch, the small video game console sells out almost
immediately when it reaches stores, even after Nintendo Co. has ramped up
production several times.
"Right now, if you work at it, it's not too hard," said John Lawrence, of
Fort Worth, Texas, who bought a Wii a few weeks ago for his 9-year-old
grandson. It took him some online sleuthing to find one at a local
GameStop.
"People have not gotten into the Christmas shopping mode. Once people get
into that mindset, this is going to be an impossibility as it was last
year," Lawrence said.
With the Wii, Nintendo set out make a console that would entice people who
were not hardcore gamers, and it has succeeded. Janet Presti stood an hour
in line at the Nintendo World Store in New York on Tuesday last week to
get a Wii for her three children, but it wasn't just for them.
"I played it at my sister's house and I loved it," she said. Her
household already has three game consoles: an Microsoft Xbox 360, a Sony
PlayStation 2 and a Nintendo GameCube.
The Wii responds to the user moving the wand-like wireless controller,
while other consoles are controlled by a confusing array of buttons and
joysticks. It also comes with an array of casual, nonviolent games that
appeal to adults.
Sony and Microsoft have cut the prices of their consoles this fall, but
continuing demand for the Wii has meant Nintendo hasn't had to.
Perrin Kaplan, vice president of marketing and corporate affairs at
Nintendo of America, said the console was "priced right from the
beginning." A look at eBay shows that Kaplan may be wrong: New Wii systems
are selling about $100 above the $250 store price.
Some of the demand for Wiis results from trouble in the toy industry, as
well as the gadget's cross-generational appeal.
"No one is buying toys right now because of the recalls," said Gerrick
Johnson, a toy industry analyst at BMO Capital Markets.
First, toys were recalled because of lead paint and dangerous magnets.
Then, Aqua Dots - colored beads that were making their way to must-have
status - were pulled because they were coated with a chemical that turned
into the date-rape drug gamma hydroxy butyrate if swallowed.
"It's really unfortunate for the toy industry, because the lead issue was
starting to subside, was getting off the front page ... and then along
comes this, which is totally outrageous," Johnson said.
"Whoever thought that there'd be a day when parents say 'Don't play with
your dangerous toys, go play with your video games'?" he asked.
The console has been a tremendous boost for Nintendo, which lost out to
Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. in the last generation of game consoles.
In the quarter ended Sept. 30, it more than doubled its sales to $6.1
billion from a year earlier, just before the launch of the Wii. It sold
5.5 million Wiis in the U.S. since it went on sale on last Nov. 17.
The stock market now values Nintendo at $75 billion, compared to $48
billion for Sony, which has six times the revenue.
Nintendo has increased the pace of production, but acknowledges that it
won't be able to satisfy holiday-season demand.
"It's brand new technology, so you can't build it on just any line," said
Nintendo's Kaplan.
In an interview last week, Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer said the
Wii shortages were "a little fortuitous," and indicated that the
PlayStation 3 was poised to benefit from the situation. U.S. sales of the
console doubled to 100,000 per week soon after an Oct. 18 price cut, he
said.
The issue of demand outstripping supply has dogged Nintendo with the DS
handheld game as well, which launched in 2004.
"We've been struggling since launch to keep inventory - we finally have
enough of that," said Kaplan.
Senators Urge Tougher Rating For "Manhunt" Game
A bipartisan group of lawmakers including a Democratic presidential
hopeful is calling on the makers of video games to review the industry's
ratings system.
In letter to the Entertainment Software Rating Board, the lawmakers
complained about its decision to give an "mature" rating Rockstar's
"Manhunt 2" game.
Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., Sam Brownback, R-Kan., Evan Bayh, D-Ind.,
and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., said the game's violent content,
which includes "many graphic torture scenes and murders," should have
garnered an "adults only" rating.
Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president,
has long pressed for tougher ratings and has called for a unified ratings
system for movies, games and TV shows.
"We ask your consideration of whether it is time to review the
robustness, reliability and repeatability of your ratings process,
particularly for this genre of 'ultraviolent' video games and the advances
in game controllers," the senators wrote. "We have consistently urged
parents to pay attention to the ESRB rating system. We must ensure that
parents can rely on the consistency and accuracy of those ratings."
Rockstar also makes the controversial "Grand Theft Auto" series of games.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Study: Internet Could Run Out Of Capacity In Two Years
Consumer and corporate use of the Internet could overload the current
capacity and lead to brown-outs in two years unless backbone providers
invest billions of dollars in new infrastructure, according to a study
released Monday.
A flood of new video and other Web content could overwhelm the Internet by
2010 unless backbone providers invest up to $137 billion in new capacity,
more than double what service providers plan to invest, according to the
study , by Nemertes Research Group, an independent analysis firm. In North
America alone, backbone investments of $42 billion to $55 billion will be
needed in the next three to five years to keep up with demand, Nemertes
said.
The study is the first to "apply Moore's Law (or something very like it)
to the pace of application innovation on the 'Net," the study says. "Our
findings indicate that although core fiber and switching/routing resources
will scale nicely to support virtually any conceivable user demand,
Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, will likely
cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five
years."
The study confirms long-time concerns of the Internet Innovation Alliance
(IIA), an advocacy group focused on upgrading U.S. broadband networks,
said Bruce Mehlman, co-chairman of the group. The group, with members
including AT&T, Level 3 Communications, Corning, Americans for Tax Reform,
and the American Council of the Blind, has been warning people of the
coming "exaflood" of video and other Web content that could clog its
pipes.
The study gives "good, hard, unique data" on the IIA concerns about
network capacity, Mehlman said. The Nemertes study suggests demand for
Web applications like streaming and interactive video, peer-to-peer file
transfers, and music downloads will accelerate, creating a demand for
more capacity. Close to three quarters of U.S. Internet users watched an
average of 158 minutes of video in May and viewed more than 8.3 billion
video streams, according to research from comScore, an analysis group.
Internet users will create 161 exabytes of new data this year, and this
exaflood is a positive development for Internet users and businesses, IIA
says. An exabyte is 1 quintillion bytes or about 1.1 billion gigabytes.
One exabyte is the equivalent of about 50,000 years of DVD-quality video.
Carriers and policy makers need to be aware of this demand, Mehlman
added.
"Video has unleased an explosion of Internet content," Mehlman said. "We
think the exaflood is generally not well understood and its investment
implications not well defined."
The responsibility for keeping up with this growing demand lies with
backbone providers and national policy makers, added Mehlman, also
executive director of the Technology CEO Council, a trade group, and a
former assistant secretary of technology policy in the U.S. Department of
Commerce.
"It takes a digital village," he said. "Certainly, infrastructure
providers have plenty to do. You've seen billions in investment, and
you're seeing ongoing billions more."
U.S. lawmakers can also help in several ways, he said. For example, the
U.S. Congress could require that home contractors who receive government
assistance for building affordable housing include broadband connections
in their houses, he said. Congress could also provide tax credits to help
broadband providers add more capacity, he said.
Consumers also pay high taxes for telecommunication services, averaging
about 13 percent on some telecom services, similar to the tax rate on
tobacco and alcohol, Mehlman said. One tax on telecom service has
remained in place since the 1898 Spanish-American War, when few U.S.
residents had telephones, he noted.
"We think it's a mistake to treat telecom like a luxury and tax it like a
sin," he said.
One Laptop Per Child Extends Promotion
A promotion in which a customer buying a $188 computer in the U.S. and
Canada automatically donates a second one to a child in a developing
country was extended until year's end, organizers said Thursday.
The "Give One, Get One" program will now run through Dec. 31, instead of
ending on Nov. 26, according to the One Laptop Per Child Program, a
nonprofit spinoff from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The program said customers in the U.S. and Canada will pay $399 for two
laptops, with one going to the buyer and the other to a child in such
countries as Rwanda, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti and Mongolia.
"In the past 10 days, we've experienced an outpouring of support from the
public that is truly gratifying and encouraging," said Nicholas
Negroponte, the program's founder.
Negroponte said they decided to extend the program because "so many people
have asked for more time to participate either individually or in order to
organize local and national groups to which they belong."
"We want as many people as possible to have the opportunity to act upon
the giving spirit of the holiday season," he said.
The laptop has a homegrown user interface designed for children, boasts
built-in wireless networking, uses very little power and can be recharged
by hand with a pulley or a crank.
PayPal Offers Secure Way To Shop Non-PayPal Sites
PayPal, the payments service arm of online auction leader eBay Inc, is set
to release on Tuesday a convenient way for its customers to make payments
on Web sites that don't accept PayPal directly.
The new software utility, called the PayPal Secure Card, recognizes when
a user lands on an e-commerce checkout page and automatically helps the
user fill out the payment form in a secure way that also offers stepped-up
fraud protections.
It answers an innovation by Google Inc, which a year ago introduced Google
Checkout, which stores financial details to make shopping more convenient,
analysts said.
Through a partnership with credit card issuer MasterCard Inc, Secure Card
generates a unique MasterCard number each time a PayPal user arrives on
an e-commerce sales checkout page that does not otherwise accept its
payments.
"From a merchant's perspective this looks like any other MasterCard
transaction," said Chris George, director of financial products for
PayPal. "And it's just another PayPal purchase to the customer."
Secure Card has been tested by 3 million PayPal customers in the past
year. The plug-in will be available to U.S. customers on Tuesday, with
international customers to follow.
When a PayPal customer wants to pay for something on a site that doesn't
normally accept PayPal payments, users click a downloaded PayPal button
on their browsers to generate a unique, single-instance Secure Card
transaction number.
"Actual PayPal activity goes up," George said. "It makes sense, because
it just makes shopping easier and safer."
By residing on the PayPal user's computer, Secure Card can detect when
users visit e-commerce sites. The software then automatically fills in
their stored financial information, requiring just a few more clicks to
authorize a transaction.
PayPal stores no details on the local computer for security reasons.
Instead, it logs Secure Card activity in the user's account on central
computers for safety and record-keeping.
Secure Cards work on Windows computers running either Internet Explorer
or Firefox. Users of Apple's Safari browser have only partial access to
the service for now, George said.
Red Gillen, an analyst with financial services research firm Celent, said
the new service makes PayPal useful on e-commerce sites across the Web,
not just on online merchants that have embedded PayPal technology into
their own sites.
"This is really the way to complement those Web sites that don't take
PayPal already," the analyst said.
Usage of PayPal on the Web at large is growing at nearly twice the rate
that it is on eBay and the new service will help further accelerate this
growth beyond the tens of thousands of merchants who already accept
PayPal payments.
In the third quarter ended September, transactions through Web merchants
grew 61 percent to $5.38 billion from a year ago, while overall PayPal
transaction volume grew 34 percent to $12.22 billion over the same
period.
PayPal reported 37.5 million active accounts during the latest quarter,
and 164 million total accounts worldwide.
Secure Cards is the latest measure from eBay to curtail "phishing" - spam
e-mails that seek to deceive customers into clicking on bogus sites and
giving up key financial details.
A study by anti-virus firm SophosLabs found in September only 21 percent
of phishing purported to come from eBay or PayPal. A year ago, 85 percent
of these bogus messages claimed to be from these two leading auction and
online payment sites.
Mozilla Releases First Beta of Firefox 3
Mozilla launched a new beta of Firefox this week, essentially a developer
preview of the features and functions promised in the third major point
release of the popular open-source browser. Firefox 3 Beta 1 is available
for testing so Mozilla can gain feedback before the software advances to
the next stage in the release process.
"Much of the work leading up to this first beta has been around
developing the infrastructure to support a bunch of exciting new
features," Mozilla noted. "With this first beta, you'll get a taste of
what's coming in Firefox 3, but there's still more to come, and much of
what you'll see is still a bit rough around the edges."
Rough edges include the fact that Firefox add-ons don't work properly
with the beta version. Those add-ons include applications such as ad
blockers, search engines, and dictionaries in other languages. Mozilla
did not offer a final release date, noting only that the final version
will be launched "when we qualify the product as fully ready for our
users."
Firefox 3 Beta 1 is based on the new Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform.
The platform includes nearly two million lines of code changes designed
to fix some 11,000 issues. Gecko 1.9 includes some major changes to
enhance performance, stability, and code simplification and
sustainability.
Mozilla said Gecko 1.9 makes for a more secure, easier to use, more
personal product with a lot under the hood to offer Web site and Firefox
add-on developers.
New security features include malware protection, more informative SSL
information, and a one-click function to identify who owns a site. In
addition, Firefox 3 automatically checks add-ons and will disable older,
insecure versions. The browser even will inform antivirus software when
downloading executables, and it respects the Windows Vista parental
control setting for disabling file downloads.
In terms of the user interface, Firefox 3 offers a slew of updates. The
new browser is designed to make it easier to manage passwords with an
information bar that replaces the old password dialog. That means you can
now save passwords after a successful login. What's more, the add-ons
whitelist has been removed so you can install extensions from third-party
sites in fewer clicks.
Mozilla also set out to make the browser more personal, with a star
button that lets you add bookmarks from the location bar with a single
click. A "smart places" folder lets you access recently bookmarked and
tagged pages, as well as more frequently visited pages.
Performance-wise, Mozilla is promising greater reliability with bookmarks,
history, cookies, and preferences now stored in a secure database format
designed to prevent data loss even if the system crashes. The new version
also plugs more than 300 individual memory leaks.
At this stage in browser development, most of what the market sees will
be evolutionary, according to Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter
Research. Although there still is plenty of room for improvement, he
explained, most of the improvements won't be as dramatic as in past
years.
"No doubt, once Firefox 3 gets released it will pick up some mainstream
usage," Gartenberg said. "There's a lot of nice features in there. But in
terms of browsing, it's probably not going to blow people away the way
the first releases did."
Town May Criminalize Online Harassment
The tragedy of Megan Meier will take another twist Wednesday night when
officials in her home town vote on whether to make online harassment a
local crime.
Meier is the 13-year-old suburban St. Louis girl who met a cute
16-year-old named Josh Evans last year on the social networking site
MySpace. They became close, but suddenly he turned on her, calling her
names, saying she was "a bad person and everybody hates you." Others
joined the harassment - the barrage culminated in Megan's Oct. 16, 2006,
suicide, just short of her 14th birthday.
Weeks later, Megan's grieving parents learned that the boy didn't exist
- he'd been fabricated by a neighbor, the mother of one of Megan's former
friends. The girls had had a falling out, police say, and she wanted to
know what Megan was saying about her daughter.
Local police and the FBI investigated, but more than a year later, no
criminal charges have been filed. Tonight, the Dardenne Prairie Board of
Aldermen will vote on whether to make Internet harassment a crime in its
jurisdiction.
But since a local newspaper columnist broke the story of Megan's death
last week, the case has grabbed the attention of the blogosphere: The
paper didn't identify the neighbor, and police say she committed no
crime, but bloggers who see it differently have outed and humiliated the
family online.
The St. Charles Journal decided not to identify the neighbor in the
absence of criminal charges or a civil complaint - even though her name
is in a police report on a related incident. Columnis Steve Pokin said he
wanted to protect her daughter. "Kids don't get to choose their parents,"
he said.
But once the story was posted online, bloggers matched details in his
lengthy piece with property records to come up with the name. Thousands
of readers soon began posting hateful comments. They posted a map and
satellite image of her home on the website rottenneighbor.com, calling
the family "psychos who pushed a teenager to SUICIDE."
By the end of the week, bloggers had also posted her name, address,
workplace and phone numbers, as well as a photo of her husband, from his
employer's website.
The phenomenon is called "Internet shaming," said Daniel Solove, a law
professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C, and author
of The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet.
"If people catch people in a transgression - increasingly they're
posting their personal information online," he said. "It's bringing back
a kind of mob justice, a posse that is very troubling."
Megan's mother, Tina Meier, 37, said Tuesday that a civil suit is still
an option, but "obviously we're hoping that the next step is that
criminal charges are going to be filed against the family."
She also advised parents to beware of adults pretending to be kids
online. "I'm hoping that parents will take an extra step and take a look
at their MySpace accounts, their Facebook accounts - it's not just kids.
You obviously can have an adult, and it doesn't have to be a sexual
predator."
The neighbor's family did not respond to calls from USA TODAY, which also
is not publishing their names.
Dardenne Prairie Mayor Pam Fogarty, a mother of five, says she's
frustrated that there have been no charges. "It's more than astounding,"
she said. "It's like, 'Come on, guys - find something that fits.' "
The proposed ordinance would make online harassment a Class B
misdemeanor, punishable by a $500 fine and up to 90 days in jail. "I'm
angry that what I can put into place isn't enough - and it's not
retroactive," she said.
She's also pushing a resolution asking state lawmakers to make online
harassment a felony statewide.
County prosecutor Jack Banas said Monday that he'd look into the case,
but that he had yet to meet with the Meier family or read the details of
reports. He wouldn't say whether he'll bring charges, but noted that no
one, including the U.S. Justice Department, found charges warranted.
"They're probably right," Banas said. "I just don't want to say that
until I've had a chance to look over all the reports."
In the meantime, Fogarty has asked police to take on extra patrols in
the neighborhood where the Meiers and the other family live.
If someone were to hurt the other family, she said, "It's another young
person that's going to have to suffer - and that's not what we want to
happen."
PC Beats WWII Computer In Code Challenge
A rebuilt World War II code-cracking computer developed to intercept Nazi
messages lost to a desktop computer Friday in a contest to decipher an
encrypted radio message.
The challenge marked the first time the Colossus machine had been used
since former Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered models of the top
secret computer destroyed, according to Britain's National Museum of
Computing, which organized the contest.
Churchill had feared Britain's national security would be threatened if
the state of the art computer's technical details ever leaked out.
However, not only was Colossus beaten by a home computer, but by one in
Germany.
Bonn-based software engineer Joachim Schueth deciphered the message, which
was encrypted by a Nazi-era Lorenz cipher machine and transmitted by radio
from Paderborn, Germany. It took him two hours Thursday, an hour and 35
minutes faster than the Colosssus. He used ham radio equipment and a
computer program he wrote especially for the challenge.
Schueth paid tribute to Colossus and those who used it during WWII at the
Bletchley Park code-breaking center, outside London, saying their work
was important to Germans because "it helped to shorten the lifetime of
the Nazi dictatorship."
But Colossus, the world's first programable computer, was no match for
its electronic descendants, he said.
"Putting Colossus in a competition with modern computers may be a bit
unfair," Schueth wrote on his Web site.
Colossus eventually completed the challenge in three hours and 35
minutes, after overcoming difficulties intercepting the distant radio
signal and repairing a blown valve.
"We've lost appreciation of just how hard it was to intercept signals,
interpret them and put them on Colossus and run them," said Andy Clark,
director of the Bletchley Park-based computing museum.
"The past two days have brought into sharp focus just how hard they had
to work," he said.
Experts spent 14 years rebuilding the Colossus using stolen design plans
and by gleaning information from those who helped create the original.
Ten Mark II Colossus machines enabled code breakers at Bletchley to
decipher top-secret communications sent by the Nazi high command.
The rebuilt computer will continue to operate as the museum's
centerpiece, Clark said.
Spam-Spitting Storm Virus, A Year Old, Is As Tricky As Ever
One of the nastiest - and most persistent - sources of spam just turned a
year old.
Since it touched down in e-mail inboxes, the Storm virus has infected at
least 1 million PCs worldwide and is responsible for billions of spam
messages. Since July, e-mail management company Postini alone has blocked
nearly 1.5 billion copies of Storm. (Before Storm hit, Postini blocked
about 1 million tainted e-mail messages a day.)
And anti-spam experts expect even more rumblings during the holidays. They
predict Storm - which is spread largely through virus-infected PCs - will
set record volumes by the end of the year, including up to 500 million
messages during the holiday season.
"There does not seem to be any let-up in sight," says Adam Swidler, a
senior manager at Postini, a subsidiary of Google. "Storm is perfectly
capable of virtually unlimited mutations."
The chameleon-like Storm surfaced in November 2006 as Nuwar, an e-mail
attachment purporting to be a news story about an imminent nuclear war
between the United States and Russia. What it contained was a computer
virus that turned the victim's PC into a machine controlled by others,
spitting out penny-stock-fraud spam.
By December 2006, the attachment morphed into a New Year's greeting, with
the same malicious payload.
In January, it had a new name, Storm, and disguise: an e-card with a link
to a tainted website containing a story about a deadly weather
catastrophe.
None of its techniques, taken alone, have been particularly innovative.
But its various mutations and morphing techniques always seem to be one
step ahead of anti-virus vendors, who can't update spam filters fast
enough to block new infections.
Storm's e-mail subject headers have ranged from faux stories about Russian
and Chinese missile attacks to electronic love letters, the NFL, and
videos from Beyonce and Foo Fighters. All were fakes, digital teases to
trick victims into clicking on tainted Web links.
In addition to employing ever-changing e-mail subject headers, Storm's
purveyors in September began planting invisible infections on hobby
websites and community forums, including a forum for Apple Macintosh
users. Merely browsing to one of these seemingly innocuous websites
infected the visitor's PC.
"It's a vivid illustration of how run-of-the-mill crooks are taking
yesterday's scams and leveraging them forward using e-mail and
sophisticated malicious hacking tools," says Patrick Peterson, vice
president of technology at security firm IronPort Systems, a division
of Cisco Systems.
Despite Filters, Tidal Wave of Spam Bears Down On E-mailers
"Two years from now, spam will be solved." - Microsoft's Bill Gates, 2004,
World Economic Forum in Switzerland
Why, in 2007, is spam worse than ever? Let exasperated consumers count
the ways: PDF spam. MP3 spam. Pump-and-dump spam. E-card spam.
It may sound like a broken record, but spam continues to do just that -
break records. This year marks the first time the total number of spam
e-mail messages sent worldwide, 10.8 trillion, will surpass the number of
person-to-person e-mails sent, 10.5 trillion, according to market
researcher IDC.
"Every year for the past four years has been the worst year yet," says
Rebecca Steinberg Herson, vice president of marketing at e-mail security
firm Commtouch.
Unwanted commercial e-mail touting Viagra, get-rich-quick schemes and more
is growing by electronic leaps and bounds: an Internet-buckling 60 billion
to 150 billion messages a day. "It was one of the rare times (Gates) was
wrong," says David Mayer, a product manager at e-mail security firm
IronPort Systems, a Cisco Systems division.
The sheer volume of unwanted commercial e-mail is like a tidal wave,
washing over the best-built digital dams and, despite a federal anti-spam
law, resulting in spam leaking through to consumers.
Feeding the spam-alanche are advances in spamming techniques, the rise of
bots - millions of compromised PCs that spew spam - and the fact that more
people have multiple e-mail addresses. Market researcher The Radicati
Group estimates there will be 2.4 billion e-mail accounts worldwide by
year's end.
Eliminating spam is "a war you cannot win," says Greg Toto, vice president
of products and operations at computer security firm BigFix. "It is much
cheaper to send spam than stop it. Spam is becoming more specialized, and
spammers are taking advantage of bad practices by consumers and
businesses.
"The stuff continues to spill through," Toto says.
And how. Despite Gates' bold prophecy, a revolving door of anti-spam
products and the Can-Spam Act of 2003 - whose advocates breathlessly
predicted would deter spammers - the total volume of meddlesome stuff has
continued an inexorable climb.
So much so that Gates recently clarified his 3-year-old prediction.
"I never said it would be solved," Gates said in an interview with USA
TODAY last month. "I said it would be substantially reduced, and in fact
it has been reduced a lot."
When reminded that numbers are spiking, Gates begged to differ. "Sure,
there's a lot (of spam) out there, but software is deleting 99.9% of that
anyway," he said. (Microsoft now pegs the figure at 85% to 95%.)
Spam is popping up in different guises - whether as attachments that
appear to be PDFs, MP3 files and Excel spreadsheets - to evade anti-spam
services, says Scott Petry, founder of e-mail security firm Postini, a
subsidiary of Google.
Faux electronic-greeting cards, containing links to viruses, have also
picked up. Since July, Postini alone has blocked more than 1.5 billion
copies of Storm, an e-mail virus masquerading as a greeting card.
Meanwhile, spam containing PDFs, non-existent in May, now accounts for 8%
of unsolicited commercial e-mail. "The bad guys have taken a highly
mutated approach because they're only paid for what gets through," says
Jose Nazario, senior security researcher at Arbor Networks.
This summer, a PDF promoting a pump-and-dump scam urged consumers to buy
shares in an obscure company called Prime Time Group. Anti-virus firm
Sophos reported a 30% spike in spam moving across the Internet at the
time, fueled by the missive. The fraudulent spam messages were sent from
compromised home PCs by Storm, the e-mail worm that entices victims to
click on tainted e-card links and thereby turns their PCs into
spam-spewing bots.
Although Sophos blocked more than 500 million copies of the Prime Time
PDF, it is likely the Internet was swamped by several billion copies of
this particular piece of fraud spam. Many copies were getting blocked by
anti-spam filters, but some made it to unprotected in-boxes.
"As long as even a small percentage of people continue responding to
pump-and-dump scams like this, the problem will continue to exist," says
Ron O'Brien, Sophos' senior security analyst.
And then there is phishing, those fraudulent e-mail and websites designed
to rip off personal information. An insidious version of spam, its levels
are at all-time highs. In July 2007 - the most recent month for which data
are available - the Anti-Phishing Working Group said new phishing sites
pole-vaulted to 30,999, from 14,191 in July 2006.
One in 87 e-mails is tagged as phishing scams now, compared with one in
500 a year ago, according to e-mail security firm MessageLabs.
All is not lost, however. Consumers and corporations are getting creative
to cope with the problem, operating on the premise that spam is
inescapable.
"You can't eradicate (spam), but you can manage the problem," says Arbor
Networks' Nazario, who compares spam to the flu.
Industrious e-mail users are using an exotic mix of software and services
to tamp down spam across several fronts. Think of it as their idea of spam
inoculation.
For a start, tens of millions use Google's Gmail because it was designed
with built-in spam defenses. Others are joining social-networking sites
such as Facebook and MySpace, where they control who has access to their
personal profile, to exchange e-mail with friends, family and business
associates.
Many also use phishing filters provided by Microsoft on its Internet
Explorer browser. Last month, Yahoo, eBay and PayPal took a major step to
shield customers from phishing attacks. They announced eBay and PayPal
customers who use Yahoo Mail should start receiving fewer bogus e-mails
because it now uses DomainKeys, an e-mail-authentication technology.
A new breed of e-mail services, such as CertifiedEmail from Goodmail
Systems, put the financial onus on the senders of unsolicited commercial
e-mail.
CertifiedEmail treats e-mail as a FedEx-like service. For less than
one-fourth of a penny per message, commercial marketers, government
agencies and non-profits are guaranteed delivery of e-mail to individuals
who have indicated they will accept the messages from that specific
sender. Recipients see a blue seal verifying that the message is
legitimate, says David Atlas, senior vice president of worldwide sales
and marketing at Goodmail.
Another free option, Boxbe, lets users of Gmail, Microsoft Outlook and
Yahoo Mail create a guest list, giving them final say on who is allowed
to send e-mail. Anyone not on the list receives an invitation to join when
they send an e-mail to the Boxbe user.
The multilayered-defense approach has worked to stop such scourges as
image spam, which varied the content of individual messages - through
colors, backgrounds, picture sizes or font types - to slip through spam
filters. Image spam made up half of all spam in January. Since software
makers came up with a solution, image spam has dropped to 8% of all spam,
Symantec says.
Given all of these free available solutions, and their success in some
cases, could the future be brighter for spam-slammed consumers?
Richi Jennings, lead analyst for e-mail security at Ferris Research,
thinks so. He expects evolving anti-spam technology to slowly choke off
unwanted commercial e-mail.
Could Gates' oft-disparaged prophecy be right, after all?
"As more people have in-boxes protected by better and better spam filters,
their experience of spam gets closer to Gates' vision," Jennings says.
"He was a bit overaggressive with the prediction, of course. But spam
isn't an easy problem to solve."
Senate OKs Restitution for Cybercrime Victims
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that would allow victims of online
identity theft schemes to seek restitution from criminals and expands the
definition of cyberextortion.
The Senate passed the Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act by
unanimous consent last week. The bill, introduced a month ago by Senator
Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, allows victims of identity theft to
seek restitution for the time they spend to fix the problems. The bill
would allow prosecutors to go after criminals who threaten to take or
release information from computers with cyberextortion, and it would
allow prosecutors to charge cybercriminals with conspiracy to commit a
cybercrime.
Current law only permits the prosecution of criminals who seek to extort
companies or government agencies by explicitly threatening to shut down
or damage a computer.
The bill would also make it a felony to use spyware or keystroke loggers
to damage 10 or more computers, even if the amount of damage was less
than US$5,000. In the past, damage of less than $5,000 was a misdemeanor.
The legislation, among other things, would also allow the federal
prosecution of those who steal personal information from a computer even
when the victim's computer is in the same state as the attacker's
computer. Under current law, federal courts only have jurisdiction if
the thief attacks from another state, according to Leahy's office.
Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, applauded the Senate
action. The U.S. Department of Justice worked with senators to craft
the legislation and fill holes in cybercrime laws, he said on the
Senate floor.
The bill "takes several important and long-overdue steps to protect
Americans from the growing and evolving threat of identity theft and
other cybercrimes," he said. "To better protect American consumers, our
bill provides the victims of identity theft with the ability to seek
restitution in federal court for the loss of time and money spent
restoring their credit and remedying the harms of identity theft, so
that identity theft victims can be made whole."
The Business Software Alliance (BSA), a trade group, and the Cyber
Security Industry Alliance (CSIA) both praised the Senate for passing
the legislation. The BSA urged the House of Representatives to act on
a similar bill.
The Senate bill closes "loopholes" in U.S. law, CSIA President Tim
Bennett said in a statement.
The Senate bill will "provide law enforcement greater tools to crack
down on the increasingly sophisticated network of cybercriminals,"
Bennett added. "Identity theft and data breaches have become organized
crime's number one business."
Web Deals Woo Shoppers From Thanksgiving Table
The holiday shopping season kicked off on Thursday even before the turkey
was carved, as retailers, worried that gift buying may slow this year,
posted special deals on their Web sites on Thanksgiving day.
Numerous retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Best Buy Co Inc and
Circuit City Stores Inc, are offering special deals online.
Wal-Mart on Thursday was advertising on its Web site a Magnavox 47-inch
flat-screen television for $1,298, while Circuit City offered a Sony
Blu-ray disc player for $399.99.
"Black Friday," as U.S. retailers call the day after Thanksgiving, starts
the ultra-competitive holiday shopping season. Retailers traditionally
open their doors in the early morning hours and offer special,
limited-time discounts.
This year, retailers have rolled out holiday deals and promotions earlier
than ever, using Web sites more extensively to advertise special
discounts.
The scramble in cyberspace for consumers comes as retailers worry U.S.
shoppers may reduce spending in the face of higher food and fuel costs,
the slowing housing market and the credit market crunch.
Walmart.com CEO Raul Vazquez said traffic to the retailer's Web site has
been rising headed into the Thanksgiving holiday shopping weekend.
"We would expect to get around 10 million" visitors to its site on
Thanksgiving, he said. That would be a big jump from typical traffic of 2
million daily visits during other times of the year.
Some retailers allowed shoppers to sign up on their Web sites to receive
cellular phone text messages alerting them when new sales and discounts
are posted.
The Web sites of most major retailers appeared to be functioning well,
with no slowdowns.
JCPenney is even offering customers wake up calls to get them to stores in
time for the 4 a.m. doorbuster sales.
Some malls are opening as early as midnight on Thanksgiving night, holding
special "Midnight Madness" shopping events.
Web Offers Myriad Choices for Holiday Cards
A search for fun holiday cards yields a world of choices on the Web,
where sites will personalize greetings, offering distinctive missives
from elf aerobics to Santa wearing only a mistletoe sprig.
The sites range from the free-wheeling MOO.com and Zazzle.com, with
thousands of user-generated images for Web savvy shoppers who demand to
stand out, to the easy-to-use MyCardMaker.com, beloved by busy
middle-aged clientele.
The U.K.-based site MOO.com has drawn more than 2,400 user-generated
entries for a holiday card design contest it is sponsoring with a $2,000
prize.
The only rule governing entries is that designs should be "vaguely
related to the holidays," MOO.com founder and Chief Executive Richard
Moross said.
"We want to be open to people's different interpretations of the
holidays," Moross said. "It's a very distinct alternative to the massive
(greeting card) industry."
Rather than shuffling through racks of spangle-encrusted greetings in
card stores, MOO.com users can choose from thousands of contest entries
or professional design images and write their own holiday messages.
The images, including personal photos, can be cropped and rotated and
laid out in a variety of ways on card stock supplied by MOO.com. To
complete their order, users choose the color scheme, font style and card
size.
A package of 10 cards, assorted or all the same, printed on high-grade
card stock costs $19.99, plus about $5 shipping, and takes five to 10
days for delivery, Moross said.
Although Moross started the site in 2004 for an Internet savvy customer
he modeled on his 19-year-old sister, the breadth of the site's users has
surprised him.
"The world has kind of grown up and everyone is doing it now," he said.
For consumers short on time or computer skills but long on ambition,
MyCardMaker.com aims to take the frustration out of card-customizing by
limiting their choices.
The process, which takes about three mouse clicks to complete, is
especially appealing to the site's main clientele: women, ages 35 to 60,
said spokesman Tim Letscher.
"It's rudimentary and simple. That's the way our customers like it,"
Letscher said.
Earlier this year, users complained when the company tried to remove
suggested greetings from inside the cards, so they were reinstated, he
said.
The site has a selection of about 180 cards designed by professional
illustrators and artists, and 75 holiday-theme photo borders. Users can,
and often do, use their own photos for cards, but the site does not have
retouching tools - too complicated, said Letscher.
For membership fees from $3.99 for a day to $29.99 for two years, users
can design and email or print on their home computers as many cards as
they like. The membership fee also entitles users to discounts on
professional printing jobs.
On the other end of the spectrum is Zazzle.com, which offers "an
unlimited number" of images because its tools let users customize all
four panels of a card, and the postage stamps as well, spokeswoman
Amber Harrison said.
Zazzle is running a daily card competition featuring art and photo
submissions by amateurs and professionals that are available for
customizing.
The site's design tool can alter practically any component of an image
with hundreds of fonts, and text and color choices. Or, users can
start from scratch with their own photos or illustrations.
Single greeting cards start at $2.95 with discounts given for larger
orders.
=~=~=~=
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