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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 10 Issue 29
Volume 10, Issue 29 Atari Online News, Etc. July 18, 2008
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2008
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:
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1029 07/18/08
~ Government E-mail, Poof ~ People Are Talking! ~ Desktops Comeback?
~ eBay Scores A Victory! ~ WebAnywhere for Blind! ~ Big Romanian Bust!
~ AOL Spammer Gets Jail! ~ Missing Laptops Finder ~ Web Tracking? No!
~ HP Portable Printers! ~ Cyberbullying Grows! ~ Oldest Blogger Dies
-* Printer Dots: Privacy Concern *-
-* Yahoo Rejects Latest Icahn Proposal *-
-* Icahn Is Refocused On Ousting Yahoo Board! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Well, I really don't have anything to talk about this week. I know,
you're all disappointed as much as I am! But, everything is about the
same - politicians are still going head-to-head with each other, the
weather is still hot and sticky, the yard is looking better, and I'm
still getting older and not as physically resilient as I was ten years
ago. Okay, so maybe 20 years ago!
So, let's hope for a change (for the better) in the weather patterns
around the country so we can save a few pennies on the air conditioning
and fans. In the meantime, stay cool, drive a little less to save on
your gasoline consumption, and whatever else that might make you feel
a little bit better off!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Editors' note: Due to the message drought in the newsgroups this week,
there will be no column this week. See y'all next week!
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Sony To Launch 80GB PS3!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Madden Football Turns 20!
Invent Superheroes!
And much more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Sony To Launch A 80GB PlayStation 3 for $399
Sony Corp said on Tuesday that it plans to launch in September
a PlayStation 3 game console with an 80-gigabyte hard drive for $399,
the same price as the PS3 with a 40-gigabyte hard drive.
"Madden Football" Marks 20 Years
With the "John Madden Football" videogame franchise nearing its 20th
anniversary, publisher Electronic Arts is pulling out all the stops to
celebrate the occasion.
Most notable for the music industry is a tie-in between the game's
soundtrack and the "Rock Band" videogame. (EA serves as the game's
distributor, which is actually published by MTV.)
Under the deal, "Rock Band" will feature music from the "Madden 09"
soundtrack in its weekly downloadable songs update, a handful at a time,
over several weeks, with each song carrying the "Madden" brand.
Additionally, each soundtrack song will be available for sale via iTunes
as part of a special "Madden" playlist.
EA is also offering fans who pre-order the game from Target an iTunes
gift card worth 10 free downloads once they pick up the title.
A special 20th-anniversary collector's edition of "Madden 09" will
include a version of the new "NFL Head Coach" game, which won't be
available to gamers until three weeks after the "Madden 09" launch. The
collector's edition will also bundle the classic "John Madden Football
'93" game and exclusive video content that includes footage of cover
athlete Brett Favre.
On August 12, EA will host Maddenpalooza, a one-day "Madden 09" game
tournament and concert featuring such bands from the soundtrack as Good
Charlotte, Airbourne and From First to Last.
DC Universe Players Invent Their Own Videogame Superheros
Sony Online Entertainment is letting comic book lovers be first to try
an online videogame that lets players invent superheroes that could go
on to thrash even Superman.
"DC Universe Online" will premiere at a major US comic convention next
week, creative director Christopher Cao told AFP on Wednesday at the
Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.
"I can't wait to have someone dressed as Batman playing as Batman," Cao
said, referring to fanatic comic book fans.
"But this game is not just about being another person playing as
Superman. It is about being equal to Superman."
Players will be able to play as any DC super characters or design a
supernaturally powerful character of their own. They will then get to
pursue paths of good or evil.
Each villain's journey is shaped by player choices and leads to
showdowns with Superman or Batman.
A player opting to oppose Superman in a fictional Metropolis will fall
in league with the superhero's notorious arch rival Lex Luthor.
"I wouldn't trust Lex as far as I can throw him," Cao warned.
Online multi-player aspects of the game will let friends play together
in superhero teams.
There will be some constraints on superhero looks or skills based on
copyrights and trademarks of established comic book characters.
"We want you to make something original to yourself," Cao said. "Not
something that is a parody of something else."
After getting feedback from comic fans for whom the game is tailored,
SOE will release it for limited "beta" testing online before making it
available to the world.
Nintendo Plans 60-Instrument "Wii Music"
Nintendo Co Ltd said on Tuesday it plans to launch a music game for its
hit Wii game console this year, taking it into the fast-growing software
segment pioneered by "Guitar Hero."
Wii sales have topped those of more technically souped up and expensive
rival consoles from Microsoft Corp and Sony Corp with its motion
controller that can be swung like a bat or a sword, broadening its
audience well beyond hard-core video gamers.
"Wii Music" will let players simulate more than 60 different instruments.
Activision's "Guitar Hero" turned the music-playing genre into arguably
the hottest category for video games.
"Guitar Hero" already plays on all three game consoles, including the
Wii, helping to build the industry's appeal among players beyond core
fighting and race-style titles.
"A true paradigm shift has taken place in the global games market,"
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata told the E3 video game conference, the
most important industry event.
A more sensitive Wii MotionPlus controller add-on also will debut next
spring with a new suite of Wii sports games from the company.
Nintendo widened the uses for the console with its Wii Fit balance board
and on Tuesday said it plans to begin selling this year "Wii Speak," a
group microphone that works with its Wii game console and can be used
for online games.
The company also said it also plans to release a much-hyped game called
"Animal Crossing: City Folk" for the Wii this year before the start of
the holiday shopping season. The game lets players serve as caretakers
of a virtual world that continues to function even when the game isn't
being played.
This is the first time that the "Animal Crossing" franchise will be
available for the Wii. It was already a hit on Nintendo's past game
platform, the GameCube, and the hand-held Nintendo DS.
Nintendo said the DS will also get a version of Take Two's "Grand Theft
Auto" this winter - "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars." The company
expects to have sold about 100 million DS units by the end of its fiscal
year next march. It had sold about 70 million in the fiscal year through
March 2008.
Nintendo Wii Is Now Top U.S. Game Console
NPD numbers are in for videogame hardware and software sales for the
month of June, but the biggest news was already announced earlier today:
With another 666,700 Wiis sold last month, Nintendo has taken the U.S.
console lead from Microsoft, with the Xbox 360 selling less than a third
of the amount of Wiis in June. The PlayStation 3, meanwhile, came in at
a very comfortable second-place thanks to the considerable impact Metal
Gear Solid 4.
Here's the full rundown:
June 2008 Hardware Sales
Nintendo DS - 783,000
Wii - 666,700
PlayStation 3 - 405,500
PSP - 337,4000
Xbox 360 - 219,800
PlayStation 2 - 188,800
May 2008 Hardware Sales
Nintendo Wii - 675,100
Nintendo DS - 452,600
PlayStation 3 - 208,700
Xbox 360 - 186,600
Sony and Nintendo Showcase Titles At E3
* So far during Nintendo's press event they have provided us with a few
neat surprises for the Nintendo DS. "Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades", I
need a nap just saying that title, has a very cool song sharing feature.
If you have the original DS version and a friend has the newer Decades
version, you two will be able to play each other's songs with or against
each other. Very cool idea! Expected launch date of September 2008
* "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" is not the best looking of the version
of the game coming out, but it still manages to bring the action of
being able to bring major Sith pain to anyone that gets in your way. The
new stylus control system looks a bit intimidating, especially since all
the other versions will use a more classic controller style to control
you?re Sith apprentice (except the Wii...which is pretty cool). I'll
bring you my final verdict after September when the game drops.
* "Sim City Creator" was not a title I expected to hear coming to the DS
again. While city creation sounds like a good idea on the go, the
screens might be just a tad too small for the new title. This time
around, they are bringing a new concept: managing your city through
different age periods. I'll admit, I'm curious to see how it will
actually play out later this year.
Sony looks to make the early 2008 non-believers of the Playstation
Portable (PSP) platform eat their words with a strong set of titles this
year.
* "Resistance Retribution" was the biggest surprise for me. My past
experiences with first and third person shooters on the PSP has been hit
or miss, but I'm a fan of Resistance, so I'm looking forward to getting
my hands on this one. Seriously, if it plays half as great as it looks,
this could be a surprise hit for the PSP!
* "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" gets double billing, as it looks great
on the PSP. Extra points for being able to smite, well, pretty much
anyone and everyone you run into (or through as the case may be) on the
go! September is going to be expensive!
* "Star Ocean: First Departure" has my attention as the Star Ocean series
has delivered a great story with solid RPG gameplay. Adding the anime
cut scenes to the mix for this PSP outing is simply icing on the cake.
The only way this bombs this October is if they completely mess up the
RPG gameplay...and I really don't think that's going to happen. There
are some other cool non-gaming feature add-ons for the PSP that we will
report about shortly but trust me these will truly make you think twice
about *not* owning a PSP.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
No Deal! Yahoo Rejects Icahn-Microsoft Offer No. Two
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn brokered a meeting Friday evening
between Microsoft and Yahoo to consider a new offer. Yahoo balked at
Microsoft's $44.6 billion takeover offer in February, and Microsoft CEO
Steve Ballmer ended purchase negotiations in May.
On Saturday, Yahoo rejected the Icahn's proposal for Microsoft to buy
Yahoo's search business for a guaranteed $2.3 billion per year over a
five-year period. Yahoo recently agreed to an $800 million nonexclusive
deal deal with Google for search ads, and Microsoft and Icahn wanted an
exclusive contract.
The proposal also would have removed Yahoo's board of directors,
including CEO Jerry Yang, and replaced them with Icahn's dissident slate.
The situation heated up last week when Icahn, in an open letter to
shareholders, revealed he was talking with Microsoft executives.
Microsoft had expressed frustration with the process and said it could
no longer negotiate directly with Yahoo.
Icahn now wants shareholders to dissolve the current Yahoo board and
create one more amenable to a Microsoft deal at the company's annual
meeting Aug. 1. The proposal rejected by Yahoo would also have given
Icahn, which owns five percent of Yahoo, control of the remainder of
Yahoo's business, including e-mail, news and social networking.
Yang charged last week that Microsoft was out to destabilize Yahoo. He
also indicated that an Icahn-led board would not be in the best
interests of Yahoo.
Shareholders can expect increased attention before the annual meeting at
the Freemont Hotel in San Jose, Calif., as Yang and Icahn promote their
choices for directors.
Icahn's slate of directors is led by Mark Cuban, a former owner of
Broadcast.com. The first priority for an Icahn-led board would be to
rescind a poison pill that would allow Yahoo to release new shares of
stock at a discount if a hostile party like Microsoft acquired 15
percent of its shares. That would make it more difficult for Microsoft
or Icahn to acquire a majority of stock.
An Icahn victory would almost certainly cement a deal with Microsoft.
But a Yang victory might not keep Microsoft or other predators at bay,
leaving shareholders to wonder what's behind door number three.
Outraged Icahn Refocuses on Ousting Yahoo Board
Apparently abandoning hopes for a truce with Yahoo Inc., investor Carl
Icahn sharpened his focus on replacing the Internet company's board
Monday after his attempt to negotiate a deal with Microsoft Corp. was
angrily rejected.
Icahn filed the final nominating papers for a slate of candidates that
will oppose Yahoo's current nine directors in a showdown scheduled for
an Aug. 1 shareholder vote. In separate letter to Yahoo shareholders,
Icahn accused the incumbent board of being more interested in protecting
its jobs than evaluating the merits of Microsoft's latest offer for
Yahoo's online search operations.
Icahn, who owns a 5 percent stake in Yahoo, also accused the board of
misleading shareholders about some aspects of the proposal, which was
rebuffed late Saturday.
"Our company is on a precipice and our board seems ready to take the
risk of seeing it topple," Icahn wrote to Yahoo shareholders.
Yahoo reiterated its disdain for Microsoft's "ludicrous" offer in its
own shareholder letter, which underscored the Silicon Valley company's
determination to fend off Icahn's attempted coup.
"We are prepared to let you, our stockholders, not Microsoft and Carl
Icahn, decide what is in your best interests and we look forward to the
upcoming vote," Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock and Chief Executive Jerry
Yang wrote.
Yang advised Yahoo's employees to brace for even more turbulence during
the next few weeks, predicting that Microsoft may make more buyout
proposals as Icahn ridicules the board.
"The last few months and weeks have certainly been challenging, and the
waters are not likely to calm before our stockholder meeting," Yang
wrote in one of two e-mails Monday to Yahoo employees and senior
managers.
The standoff caused Yahoo shares to fall $1, or 4.2 percent, to finish
at $22.57 in Monday's trading. The stock price had surged 10 percent
last week on hopes that Icahn might be able to broker a deal between
Microsoft and Yahoo after five months of on-again, off-again talks.
If Yahoo shareholders want a deal with Microsoft, Icahn said they should
elect him and his other hand-picked nominees to the board.
But putting Icahn in control of Yahoo would be risky, given his
inexperience in the Internet industry and the lack of any guarantee that
Microsoft would be willing to pay anything near the $47.5 billion that
it offered for Yahoo in its entirety in early May. That bid, worth $33
per share, was withdrawn after Yahoo sought $37 per share.
Microsoft has said it might consider making another bid for all of Yahoo
if Icahn gains control of the board. Many analysts, though, believe
Microsoft might not be willing to pay much more than $30 per share this
time around.
Icahn, who has a long history of challenging corporate boards, has
already persuaded Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to sweeten a previous
offer for Yahoo's search engine, but the way it was presented last
Friday irked Yahoo's board.
Bostock derided it as a "take it or leave it" proposal that gave Yahoo
just 24 hours to reach a decision. The proposed deal also was
conditioned on the removal of Yahoo's entire board and top executives so
Icahn would be running Yahoo's remaining business after the sale of the
search engine, Bostock said.
Microsoft countered Bostock with a Monday statement that asserted Yahoo
had mischaracterized its offer as "a take it or leave it ultimatum,
rather than a timetable in order to move forward to intensive
negotiations." The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker also said it
hadn't insisted on any changes to Yahoo's board.
In his letter Monday, Icahn said Yahoo could have had more time to
consider Microsoft's offer if the company agreed to postpone the Aug. 1
shareholder meeting "for a short period." He also said he was willing to
let Yahoo's current board keep an unspecified number of seats on the
board.
Yang would have been banished as CEO, Icahn said, but he could have
remained in the amorphous role of "chief Yahoo" that he has
traditionally held.
Microsoft's complex offer included $1 billion for Yahoo's search engine,
and guaranteed annual payments of $2.3 billion for five years. The
proposal included a renewal option that would have guaranteed $1.6
billion to $3 billion annually for another five years.
The proposal also envisioned realizing about $9 per share from spinning
off Yahoo's Asian holdings. In addition, Microsoft would have loaned
Yahoo $2.8 billion to help finance a special shareholder dividend of
$4.50 per share and invested $3.9 billion in Yahoo.
In its response, Yahoo pointed out that it could sell its Asian assets
and arrange to finance a special shareholder dividend without
Microsoft's help.
Another point of contention: Microsoft and Icahn say the latest deal's
total value would have been worth $33 per share to Yahoo. Yahoo
disagreed with Microsoft's calculations, though it did not specify how
much it believed the offer was worth.
Even with Microsoft's financial guarantees, Yahoo argues it can make
more from holding on to its search engine and supplementing its
advertising revenue in a proposed partnership with Google Inc. By
relying on Google's superior technology, Yahoo estimates it will
increase its operating cash flow by $250 million to $450 million
annually, compared to $300 million under Microsoft's latest proposal.
The Google alliance faces a rigorous antitrust review by federal
regulators and lawmakers, who have scheduled hearings Tuesday to examine
whether the partnership would hamper competition in the search
advertising market.
If Yahoo does a deal with Microsoft instead, Google would be owed a
termination fee of up to $250 million - a cost that Yahoo said was
omitted from the Microsoft proposal. Yahoo also faulted Microsoft and
Icahn for not factoring the taxes that would be due on the $1 billion
sale of its search engine.
Legg Mason: We're Backing Yahoo
Legg Mason Capital Management said Friday it will back Yahoo's existing
management at the company's shareholder's meeting next month.
The investment firm controls about 60.7 million shares of Yahoo, which
represents about 4.4 percent of outstanding Yahoo stock.
Investor Carl Icahn has proposed an alternative slate of board members,
as part of a bid to get Yahoo to agree to some sort of takeover or deal
with Microsoft.
"We believe the current Board acted with care and diligence when
evaluating Microsoft's offers. We believe the Board is independent and
focused on value creation for long-term shareholders," Bill Miller,
chairman and chief investment officer of Legg Mason said in a release.
But the investment house did say that it supports continuing efforts to
negotiate.
"We would prefer that the company and Mr. Icahn reach a mutual agreement
on the composition of the Board and end this disruptive proxy contest,"
the statement says.
Icahn is backing a change of management in part because he does not
think Microsoft can negotiate with the current board. But Legg Mason
said that is an unacceptable reason to change management.
"While boards are there to protect shareholder interests, shareholders
own the company. If Microsoft wants to acquire Yahoo, it can make the
terms and conditions of its offer public. If Yahoo shareholders support
it, I am confident the Board of Yahoo will accept it," Miller said in
the statement.
EBay Scores Victory in Internet Trademark Case
EBay Inc scored a major legal victory on Monday when a federal judge
absolved it of taking more steps to police fake Tiffany jewelry sold on
its website and held that brand owners are ultimately responsible for
protecting their own trademarks.
All of Tiffany's trademark infringement claims against eBay (EBAY.O)
were rejected - a knockout blow to the four-year-old lawsuit that had
been closely watched by Internet companies as well as luxury goods
makers seeking to stop the sale of counterfeit products online. The
ruling is expected to be appealed.
Tiffany & Co had alleged that eBay turned a blind eye to the sale of fake
Tiffany silver jewelry on its site. EBay countered it was not in a
position to determine which goods were knock-offs of the prestigious New
York brand and had said the jeweler did not adequately participate in
eBay's programs that help brand owners prevent fraud.
The judge, in a 66-page decision following a non-jury trial in U.S.
District Court in Manhattan last November, said he was "not
unsympathetic" to Tiffany and others who have invested in building their
brands only to see them exploited on the Web. But he said the law was
clearly on eBay's side.
"It is the trademark owner's burden to police its mark and companies
like eBay cannot be held liable for trademark infringement based solely
on their generalized knowledge that trademark infringement might be
occurring on their websites," wrote Judge Richard Sullivan.
EBay called the ruling a "victory for consumers," saying it
"appropriately establishes that protecting brands and trademarks is the
primary burden of rights owners."
"All I can say to that is that I'd be surprised if Tiffany did not
appeal this decision," said Mark Aaron, Tiffany's vice president of
investor relations.
He said Tiffany was "shocked and deeply disappointed" by the ruling,
which "allows sellers of counterfeit goods on eBay to victimize
consumers."
Jeffrey Lindsay, an Internet analyst with Bernstein Research, said the
ruling - coming on the heels of a similar case in France that resulted
in an eBay defeat - allayed some Wall Street concerns of snowballing
lawsuits.
"Anything short of victory for eBay would probably have added to
investor concerns that there would be a slew of lawsuits down the pike,"
said Lindsay.
Tiffany had wanted eBay to preemptively take down listings that offered
five or more of its items and immediately suspend sellers Tiffany
suspected of fraud. It had also sought monetary damages from eBay. The
judge rejected all claims.
Ebay, which has been trying to increase trust between buyers and sellers
in its main auction business, has increased spending on technology and
people to stem the sale of fake goods on its site.
San Jose, California-based eBay says it takes down more than 90 percent
of fake goods from its site within four hours of their posting after
being alerted by trademark holders.
Judge Sullivan found that Tiffany's claim ultimately failed due to
Tiffany's choice to sue eBay, rather than individual sellers, and
because eBay stops fraudulent listings after being alerted to violations.
U.S. courts have largely taken the position that it is the trademark
owner's responsibility to determine which goods sold online are
counterfeit. Under this view, a party such as eBay is liable only when
it fails to remove offending items once alerted by the trademark owner.
Still, case law has been spotty and at times inconsistent.
In Europe, courts have sometimes taken a more protectionist view. A
French court earlier this month ordered eBay to pay $61 million to LVMH
(LVMH.PA), parent of the Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton brands, over
fake luxury handbags and perfumes on its site. Ebay is appealing.
EBay has argued that a more open marketplace is key for vibrant Internet
commerce.
"This would have ended up foreclosing an entire category of eCommerce,"
said Steve DelBianco, executive director of high- tech industry group
NetChoice Coalition, speaking of the sale of trademark items on the Web.
EBay argued the issue of counterfeit goods is a red herring. Luxury
brands, according to eBay, are more interested in keeping a tight rein
on distribution of their goods than in keeping knock-offs off eBay's
site.
Brand experts say the issue is far from over.
"This is only one round of a very long bout," said Milton Pedraza, chief
executive of ratings and research group Luxury Institute, who said that,
ultimately, it will be consumers who will demand authentication of goods
purchased online.
Admins Locked Out of San Francisco's I.T. System
San Francisco's computer network was still being held hostage Thursday,
allegedly by a disgruntled employee who programmed the system with a
password only he knows. Terry Childs, 43, was jailed Sunday night. He
has a 25-year-old criminal record in Kansas for aggravated robbery that
had been disclosed at the time he was hired.
San Francisco's IT department was trying to regain control of the
network, which was running and handling everything from the mayor's
e-mail to San Francisco's electronic court records. Currently all IT
administrators are denied access.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Mayor Gavin Newsom said
administrators were blocked from making changes to the city's computer
network, so if the system were to crash, workers could not undertake
repairs or upgrades.
Cisco Systems has been consulted, and estimates are that in the worst
case, the network could be rebuilt from scratch in six to eight weeks.
Childs could be liable for the costs.
Childs pleaded not guilty Thursday to four counts of tampering with a
computer network. His lawyer, public defender Mark Jacobs, said his
client's $5 million bail was inappropriate. But city prosecutors said
the bail is high because Childs endangered public safety.
Childs could be stripped of his public defender, since there might be a
conflict of interest because the defender's office is part of the city
and county of San Francisco.
Officials searched Childs' car and home, concerned he may have given the
access code to an accomplice who could have destroyed hundreds of
thousands of sensitive documents. No evidence was found to suggest a
collaborator.
According to city officials, on June 20 Childs began photographing the
new head of security for the city's technology department after she
announced an audit of access to the system. According to authorities,
she believed Childs had given himself exclusive access to the system and
could read supervisors' e-mails about his conduct.
The security director reportedly became so concerned about Childs'
behavior that she locked herself in her office and called authorities,
leading to his arrest.
San Francisco System Lockout Called 'Misunderstanding'
The lawyer representing an engineer who allegedly locked up San
Francisco's computer system said Friday that he has been willing to
reveal the password all along.
Terry Childs, 43, has been held on $5 million bond and pleaded not
guilty Thursday to four counts of tampering with a computer network.
Erin Crane, Childs' court-appointed lawyer, called the case a big
misunderstanding and said Childs has "been willing to hand over the
password since Tuesday." He said negotiations are ongoing with city
officials.
That was news to officials in the city's IT department, who told the San
Francisco Chronicle they did not know of any offer to turn over the
password. A spokesperson for District Attorney Kamala Harris would not
comment on any talks.
The city's IT department has been trying to regain control of the
network, which handles everything from the mayor's e-mail to San
Francisco's electronic court records. All IT administrators were denied
access.
Estimates were that, if necessary, the network could be rebuilt from
scratch in six to eight weeks. Childs could be liable for the costs.
Officials searched Childs' car and home in Pittsburg, concerned that he
could have given the access code to an accomplice to destroy sensitive
documents. However, no evidence of a collaborator was found.
Childs was part of a team that built the city's computer system and the
trouble reportedly started June 20 when he photographed the new head of
security for the IT department after she began an audit of access to the
system. She reportedly believed Childs was reading supervisors' e-mails
about his conduct. On July 9, Childs was ordered to leave work for
alleged insubordination.
The security director reportedly became so concerned about Childs'
behavior that she locked herself in her office and called authorities,
leading to his arrest.
New York Man Gets 30 Months in Prison for Spamming AOL
A Brooklyn man was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Tuesday for
sending spam e-mails to more than 1.2 million subscribers of America
Online in a scheme that foiled the Internet company's spam-filtering
system.
Adam Vitale, 27, was sentenced in federal court in Manhattan after
pleading guilty more than a year ago to breaking anti-spam laws. He was
also ordered to pay $180,000 to AOL in restitution.
Vitale was caught making a deal with a government informant to send junk
e-mails - known as spam - that advertised a computer security program
in return for 50 percent of the product's profits, prosecutors said.
"Spamming is serious criminal conduct; this is not a teenager engaging
in child's play," U.S. District Judge Denny Chin told Vitale as he
sentenced him. Vitale earlier apologized and said he had learned a
lesson.
Prosecutors said Vitale had 22 prior convictions and had also helped run
an online prostitution ring on the Web site www.craigslist.com, but he
has not been criminally charged.
In the spam e-mail case, Vitale and another man, Todd Moeller, defeated
AOL's filter system by using several different computer servers to relay
the e-mails and changed the e-mail header information to ensure the spam
e-mails could not be traced back to them.
Moeller, of New Jersey, was sentenced last November to 27 months for his
role in the scheme.
Court papers said that in less than a week in August 2005, Vitale and
Moeller sent e-mails on behalf of the informant to more than 1,277,000
addresses of subscribers at AOL, the online division of Time Warner Inc.
Web-based Program Gives The Blind Internet Access
Blind people generally use computers with the help of screen-reader
software, but those products can cost more than $1,000, so they're not
exactly common on public PCs at libraries or Internet cafes. Now a free
new Web-based program for the blind aims to improve the situation.
It's called WebAnywhere, and it was developed by a computer science
graduate student at the University of Washington. Unlike software that
has to be installed on PCs, WebAnywhere is an Internet application that
can make Web surfing accessible to the blind on most any computer.
The developer, Jeffrey Bigham, hopes it lets blind people check a flight
time on a public computer at the airport, plan a bus route at the
library or type up a quick e-mail at an Internet cafe.
To get WebAnywhere running, a blind person has to manage to get online,
which can be complicated on a computer not already set up to give verbal
feedback. But Bigham's research found that Web-savvy blind people often
know plenty of keyboard tricks and when to ask for help.
Once online, a blind Web surfer can use the WebAnywhere browser, which
can link to and then read out loud any page - as long as the computer
has speakers or a headphone jack. The program can skip around the
section titles, tab through charts or read the page from top to bottom.
WebAnywhere could benefit from some tweaking but it's a big improvement
over a total lack of public access, says Lindsay Yazzolino, a blind
Brown University student who has a summer job at the University of
Washington.
Yazzolino, 19, would like to see a better search function and fewer
keystrokes required for navigation around Web pages, but she loves the
fact that the program is free.
Bigham says he hopes others will make improvements to his program, which
is open-source to invite tinkering. He doesn't have a personal
connection to the issue of computer accessibility - except through his
fellow students who are blind - but recognizes the area as wide open for
programmers.
His faculty adviser, professor Richard Ladner, hopes a commercial search
engine will adopt WebAnywhere as a module. Ladner's next dream is for
Web developers to keep blind people in mind when they design their pages
- a change that could make information easier for everyone to find.
HP's New PhotoSmarts Make Printing Portable
On Tuesday, Hewlett-Packard announced three new additions to its
Photosmart printer line, including two portable printers and one
stationary five-ink model.
The HP Photosmart A630 features a 4.8-inch touchscreen, which, according
to HP, is the largest available on any portable printer. The A630 also
offers built-in features some 300 built-in tools for editing, drawing,
and touching up photos, without the aid of a PC.
The other portable printer, the Photosmart A530, meanwhile, is the only
$99 printer that prints photos up to 5x7-inches, according to HP. The
printer also offers clipart and borders for enhancing photos.
The HP Photosmart D5460 is a stationary printer with a five-ink printing
system, which, according to HP, can produce quality formerly only
available with six-ink systems. It also features a 1,5-inch color
screen, memory card slots, CD and DVD printer, and Smart Web Printing,
which offers easy printing directly from the Internet.
The A630 and A530 are both available in August for $149 and $99,
respectively. The D5460 is available now for $99.
Is the Desktop PC Making a Comeback?
Mobile computers such as laptops have had tremendous momentum in the
market the past few years, but the stodgy desktop may be making a
comeback.
Converge, a U.S. company that does much of its work with chip spot
markets, noted in its most recent report Wednesday that a rare shortage
has emerged in desktop microprocessors.
"The story of the third quarter has been the dramatic resurgence of
shortages in the desktop market after a sustained period of relative
calm," the report says.
Most microprocessors are sold by contract to major buyers such as PC
vendors Hewlett-Packard and Dell, but often some chips, including excess
inventory, are sold to the global spot market. For chips such as DRAM,
the spot market can often be an early indicator of a trend, but that's
not always the case in the microprocessor spot market because it is far
smaller.
The report says the phase-out of an older microprocessor family caused
some product shortages last year and that may be happening again this
year with Intel's Pentium E series Conroe family.
Still, there is other anecdotal evidence of something going on in the
desktop market.
Gartner noted Wednesday in its second quarter PC market report that
desktop PC shipments gained traction among professional users in the
U.S. The market researcher says that may be occurring because of growing
economic uncertainty in the U.S.
Since desktop PCs cost less than mobile PCs, they are a less expensive
option for businesses with tighter IT budgets, Gartner said.
Intel, the world's largest chip maker and provider of around four-fifths
of all computer microprocessors, also noted some strength in desktop PCs
during a conference call after its second quarter results, which were
announced Tuesday.
Executives at the company said prices for its desktop microprocessors
remained constant in the second quarter because of solid demand for
desktop products in emerging markets as well as in corporations. Prices
for Intel microprocessors used in mobile devices fell.
Over the past few years, the mobile PC market has been where most of the
growth has been, while market researchers have noted very little growth
in shipments of desktop PCs.
In fact, Intel even noted that the number of microprocessors aimed at
laptop computers it shipped in the second quarter beat desktop
microprocessor shipments for the first time.
"We saw notebook unit shipments cross over desktops in the overall
client PC category in the second quarter," said Paul Otellini, Intel's
president and CEO, during a conference call. "What I think we're seeing
is a fundamental shift to notebooks."
The crossover occurred six months sooner than Intel expected, he said.
Printer Dots Raise Privacy Concerns
The affordability and growing popularity of color laser printers is
raising concerns among civil liberties advocates that your privacy may
not be worth the paper you're printing on.
More manufacturers are outfitting greater numbers of laser printers with
technology that leaves microscopic yellow dots on each printed page to
identify the printer's serial number - and ultimately, you, says the San
Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of the leading
watchdogs of electronic privacy.
The technology has been around for years, but the declining price of
laser printers and the increasing number of models with this feature is
causing renewed concerns.
The dots, invisible to the naked eye, can be seen using a blue LED light
and are used by authorities such as the Secret Service to investigate
counterfeit bills made with laser printers, says Lorelei Pagano,
director of the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group.
privacy advocates worry that the little-known technology could ensnare
political dissidents, whistle-blowers or anyone who prints materials
that authorities want to track.
"There's nothing about this technology that limits its application to
counterfeit investigations," says Seth Schoen, a computer programmer
with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Some people who aren't doing
anything wrong may have their privacy threatened." Schoen's tests have
found the dots produced by 111 color laser printers made by 13 companies
including Xerox, Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Epson and Brother.
The dots are produced only on laser devices and not ink-jet printers,
which are most commonly used at home. But laser printers, which produce
more durable images, are becoming increasingly popular as their price
has dropped to as low as $300, says Angele Boyd, a vice president of IDC
Research.
Although laser printers made up only 4% of the 33 million printers sold
last year in the USA, their sales have been growing by double digits
since 2004, Boyd says.
The technology began as laser printers were first produced in the
mid-1980s and governments and banks feared an explosion of
counterfeiting, Xerox spokesman Bill McKee says. "In many cases, it is a
requirement to do business internationally that the printers are
equipped with this technology," McKee says.
The dots tell authorities the serial number of a printer that made a
document. In some cases, it also tells the time and date it was printed,
Pagano says. "The Secret Service is the only U.S. body that has the
ability to decode the information," she says.
Printer makers "cooperate with law enforcement" and will tell
authorities where a printer was made and sold, McKee says.
The Secret Service uses the dots only to investigate counterfeiting,
agency spokesman Ed Donovan says.
Reps Give Thumbs Down to Sniffing Online Activity
Should ISPs and Web site owners be banned from keeping track of your
online activity just as the Post Office is banned from going through
your snail mail?
Absolutely, according to several members of the House Subcommittee on
Telecommunications and the Internet, who grilled the owner of a
behavioral advertising company Thursday over the inability of consumers
to opt out of Internet monitoring.
Specifically, the committee was concerned about a technology known as
deep-packet inspection, a technique that allows for the detailed
inspection of data as it travels across the Internet. ISPs can use it to
filter out the illegal transfer of copyrighted material or harmful
viruses and spam, but providers like Comcast have come under fire for
allegedly using the technology to block certain file-sharing
applications.
"As opposed to individual Web sites that know certain information about
visitors to its websites and affiliates, deep packet inspection
technologies can indicate every Web site a user visits and much more
about a person's web use," said subcommittee chairman Edward Markey, a
Massachusetts Democrat.
"In my view, consumers deserve, at a minimum: clear, conspicuous, and
constructive notice about what the broadband provider's use of deep
packet inspection will be; meaningful, 'opt-in' consent for such use;
and no monitoring or data interception of those consumers who do not
grant consent for such use," Markey said.
Much of the subcommittee's fire was reserved for Bob Dykes, chief
executive of NebuAd, an online advertising company that aggregates
information to serve up targeted ads.
The Post Office is not allowed to go through your mail and neither
should your ISP, Markey said. The idea that NebuAd might be exempt
because it is a private company is not a valid argument because private
companies like FedEx and UPS are also banned from going through
consumers' packages.
When asked by Markey to support to an opt-in standard for authorizing
the use of consumers' data, Dykes deferred.
"I would say to characterize opt-in or opt-out is probably not as
important as saying there should be a very robust notice" of what NebuAd
is doing with a persons' data, he said.
Markey was not convinced. "No, you have to get the consumer to say yes,"
he pushed. "Do you support that?"
"I think you're forcing me into one of those 'have you stopped beating
your wife?' questions," Dykes responded.
"Have you stopped beating the consumer?" Markey asked.
At this point, ISPs include notices of impending deep-packet inspection
as bill inserts or in e-mails to customers, Dykes said.
His company is working with the Center for Democracy and Technology
(CDT) to instead have those notices pop when a user signs on to their
account. That notice would tell the customer that their activity would
be tracked and give them the option to opt out. If they took no action,
however, their activity would be tracked by default.
That seemed to be the point of contention between Dykes and several
Democratic members of the subcommittee.
"I think most Americans would believe the information they have about
themselves is theirs. Just because I belong to an ISP doesn't give me
the right to be tracked," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. "Why should the
burden be on the American consumer?"
"I think that there should be a common set of laws around privacy in
this country that generally treats various techs in the same manner,"
Dykes said.
"The idea that anyone can examine what you do, where you go; I think
goes against everything that the country's been founded on and that most
Americans believe," said Rep. Mike Doyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat. "And
I don't care if an ISP is doing it or Google's doing it, it shouldn't be
happening."
Ranking member Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican, defended Dykes
somewhat by pointing out that online notifications could be burdensome.
"If Congress mandates that, isn't it possible that when I go on the
Internet; there would be a constant dialogue box and every consumer
will have to click in and click out" of every Web site, Stearns asked.
"It doesn't have to be a box on every Web site you visit, just [one
notice from] your ISP," Doyle countered.
This has been a rough month for Dykes and NebuAd. He faced the firing
squad in the Senate last week where Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota
Democrat, compared NebuAd's activities to wiretapping.
At that hearing, Dykes clashed with Leslie Harris, president and CEO of
CDT. Dykes said he believed that data collection on the Internet could
indeed be truly anonymous but Harris disagreed, pointing to AOL, which
in 2006 mistakenly released 20 million search queries that included
identifiable data.
NebuAd and CDT are now working together to reach a "common ground" on
consumer notification, Dykes said. The two groups met Wednesday and came
to a "high-level understanding" about how to allow Web users to opt-out
of NebuAd's targeted advertising.
Earlier this week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee penned a
letter to Embarq Corporation regarding a test the company recently
performed in conjunction with NebuAd to create consumer profiles based
on consumers' web browsing data.
The committee asked Tom Gerke, CEO of Embarq, to provide detailed
information on when and where it conducted its test with NebuAd, whether
Embarq conducted a legal analysis of the practice, and its policy on
opt-in vs. opt-out.
Gerke was asked to respond by July 21.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) voiced its opposition to
deep-packet inspection Thursday.
"Every time we visit the Internet, everything we read, everything we see;
all of it is up for grabs with DPI," Timothy Sparapani, ACLU senior
legislative counsel, said in a statement. "If that information is
obtained by the government, then you have exactly zero privacy online."
E-mail Public Documents Get Erased, Disappear
Laws in all but a handful of states give the public access to government
e-mail. But what if that e-mail was intentionally deleted or routinely
purged?
In Hawaii, Gov. Linda Lingle's office allowed e-mails of her top aide to
be purged. In North Carolina, Gov. Mike Easley's administration
allegedly ordered state workers to delete their e-mail correspondence
with his office. And in Missouri, lawsuits claim Gov. Matt Blunt's
office deleted e-mails and ordered the destruction of backup e-mail tapes.
These and other cases raise concerns that millions of public records in
the form of e-mails may be disappearing before anyone outside government
can read them.
Experts say e-mail archiving systems and better training for state
employees will help ensure e-mail is not lost.
"We're not saying states are trying to do something bad," said Kevin
Joerling, a certified records manager with the Association of Records
Managers and Administrators, International, a trade group. "But they
don't understand how important e-mail records can be, and they have to
be protected."
A 50-state survey by the Associated Press of government e-mail retention
earlier this year found a wide variety of laws and practices, with the
vast majority of states officially treating e-mail like printed
documents. But most of the states with e-mail laws allow officials to
choose which ones to turn over in Freedom of Information requests and to
decide on their own when e-mail records are deleted.
In Hawaii, a recently settled blackmail case that involved undisclosed
allegations against Lingle's former chief of staff, Bob Awana, hinged on
e-mails.
The blackmailer, Indian national Rajdatta Patkar, was sentenced last
October to a year in prison for demanding $35,000 by e-mail from Awana.
According to Patkar's lawyer, Pamela Byrne, her client discovered
e-mails that showed two women served as escorts for Awana and a Hawaii
businessman on an official state trip by Lingle to the Philippines.
Awana resigned after Patkar's arrest, saying nothing about the case, but
Lingle has denied that he did anything wrong on a state time.
The Associated Press requested calendars and e-mails from Awana's
government e-mail account in February to determine whether they could
provide evidence of misconduct on state trips to the Philippines in 2005
and 2006. But the governor's office said the e-mail had been routinely
purged.
Russell Pang, chief of media relations for the Lingle administration,
said in May that government e-mail records are deleted every two months.
He said Awana did not save e-mails to his hard drive or print them out
and that Awana's computer was cleared for use by someone else after
Awana resigned last June.
Only a handful of e-mails related to Philippine trips were disclosed to
the media, none of them providing evidence of any wrongdoing.
William Tolson, director of legal solutions for Mimosa Systems, Inc., a
California-based company that sells e-mail archiving software, said
there is no reason states can't retain e-mails longer.
Tolson said corporations have archiving systems that store hundreds of
millions of e-mails for years.
"If companies do it, why can't the government?" he asked.
A state panel in North Carolina recommended in May that e-mail messages
be stored for at least five years. It also endorsed the development of
an archive system for e-mails that need to be retained even longer.
As governor, Easley created the group to study the state's e-mail
storage polices after his administration was accused of ordering state
employees to delete their e-mail correspondence with the governor's
office.
Easley has said there is no evidence such a systematic destruction took
place.
But some state officials and records managers say not all e-mails could
or even should be retained.
Guidelines issued by the state comptroller in Hawaii allow e-mail that
state officials say is not a record, such as informal messages about
grabbing lunch or a notice about a holiday party, to be deleted from the
e-mail system when "no longer needed for operational purposes."
Joerling said if state agencies retain all e-mails without sorting out
government records from more mundane correspondence, they may have
trouble retrieving information in response to an official request.
"It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack," he said.
Laurence Brewer, director of the life cycle management division at the
federal National Archives and Records Administration, said an agency's
records may be used against it in a lawsuit. So keeping records longer
than guidelines recommend could also be a liability, he said.
Hawaii State Archivist Susan Shaner said there is simply too much e-mail
to save it all.
But open government activists say it's better to err on the side of
retaining too much information than risk losing records. Some argue that
all e-mails sent and received on government e-mail accounts amount to a
public record.
Hawaii state Sen. Les Ihara said technology has made storage space for
e-mails and other computer files inexpensive.
"You can store virtually everything," Ihara said. "The rationale that we
need to purge in order to save space is moot."
Romanian Authorities Arrest Cybercrime Suspects
Authorities have arrested more than 20 people in Romania who are
suspected of running online fraud schemes, according to media reports.
The Tuesday arrests were confirmed by the U.S. Federal Bureau of
Investigation, which has been working with Romanian officials on
cybercrime in recent months. The FBI would say only that the agency is
aware of the arrests and because "this is an ongoing matter, we will
have no further comment at this time."
Romanian news reports suggested the number of people arrested there was
between 21 and 24. Mediafax.ro reported that the suspects were accused
of stealing identities online, in apparent phishing or auction-fraud
schemes, and that they had taken US$640,000 from non-Romanians. Several
U.S. Web sites, including eBay, were targets of the fraud, according to
news reports.
The group's alleged leader, Romeo Chita, was arrested in an apartment
owned by a Romanian lawmaker, Mediafax.ro reported.
Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the
University of Alabama at Birmingham, applauded the arrests in a blog
post Wednesday.
The arrests are "another example of the successful international
cooperation" between the U.S. and Romanian law enforcement, he wrote.
"How long is the long arm of the law?" Warner wrote. "It's at least long
enough to reach from eBay headquarters to Romania."
Warner posted video of three of the arrests on his blog.
In May, U.S. and Romanian authorities announced that 38 people in the
two countries had been charged with using complicated Internet phishing
schemes to steal thousands of credit and debit-card numbers. Two related
phishing schemes had ties to organized crime, the U.S. Department of
Justice said then.
Phishing involves sending e-mail messages that look like official
correspondence from banks or credit-card vendors in an attempt to get
recipients to go to a fake Web site and enter their account numbers.
New Service Tracks Missing Laptops for Free
Lose your laptop these days and you lose part of your life: You say
good-bye to photos, music and personal documents that cannot be
replaced, and if it's a work computer, you may be the source of a very
public data breach.
But now, researchers at the University of Washington and the University
of California, San Diego, have found a way to give you a shot at getting
your life back. On Monday, they plan to launch a new laptop tracking
service, called Adeona that is free and private.
Named after the Roman goddess credited with guiding children back to
their parents, Adeona uses software that has been under development for
the past year.
Here's how it works: A user downloads the free client software onto a
laptop. That software then starts anonymously sending encrypted notes
about the computer's whereabouts to servers on the Internet. If the
laptop ever goes missing, the user downloads another program, enters a
username and password, and then picks up this information from the
servers, specifically a free storage service that has been around for
several years, called OpenDHT.
The Mac version of Adeona even uses a freeware program called
isightcapture to take a snapshot of whomever is using the computer.
Adeona doesn't exactly give you the address and phone number of the
person who's stolen your laptop, but it does provide the IP (Internet
Protocol) address that it last used as well as data on what nearby
routers it used to connect to the Internet. Armed with that information,
law enforcement could track down the criminal, said Tadayoshi Kohno, an
assistant professor at the University of Washington. "Once you actually
recover information about your laptop...you probably want to take this
information to the police."
Aviel Rubin, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who is familiar
with the Adeona project says he wants to download the code when Adeona
goes live. "Not all the information that you're going to get in every
circumstance is going to find the laptop or catch the bad guy," he said.
"But this is a pretty big step forward."
"Without this, you could pretty much kiss the laptop good-bye," he added.
When the team first started work on Adeona it wasn't the tracking and
retrieval of missing laptops that piqued their curiosity. It was a
privacy problem: How could they build a laptop tracking service that was
so private that even the people running the service could not discover
the location of the laptop? That information would be accessible only to
the user, Kohno said.
The researchers believe that commercial tracking services are
unappealing because the services could theoretically be used to keep
tabs on legitimate users. "It's not exactly clear what they're doing
since their systems are closed source," said Thomas Ristenpart, a
graduate student with the University of California's Department of
Computer Science, who worked on the project.
On the other hand commercial products such as Absolute Software's Lojack
for Laptops have many features that Adeona lacks. For example their
software is much harder to remove from the laptop, and these companies
are already in the business of working with police to recover stolen
laptops. Lojack costs about $40 per year. Another service, Brigadoon's
PC PhoneHome goes for a one-time $30 fee.
Because Adeona ships with an open-source license, anyone can take the
code and improve it or even sell it. The researchers say they're hoping
that software developers will build all kinds of new features such as
GPS- (Global Positioning System) aware tracking systems for new
platforms such as the iPhone.
Later this month, the Adeona team will give a technical presentation at
the Usenix Security Symposium in San Jose, California.
The University of Washington's Kohno said he'd be happy if some of the
existing vendors started using the code. "I believe that privacy for
laptop tracking systems is important," he said. "I would really like to
see existing commercial services provide high levels of privacy."
Cyberbullying Grows Bigger and Meaner With Photos, Video
Ricky Alatorre doesn't know which classmate surreptitiously hoisted a
cellphone camera and snapped his picture or exactly when it happened.
All Ricky, 16, knows is the fuzzy yet distinguishable portrait of him in
English class showed up on MySpace, on a page that claimed to be his.
And the fake profile, titled "The Rictionary," not only identified his
school but also said Ricky loved dictionaries - a swipe at his school
smarts - and was gay (he's not), one of the most common schoolyard
taunts.
Tall, big and bookish, Ricky, who lives on a farm in Lake County, Ind.,
had been picked on since he was in kindergarten.
Insults flung in the heat of anger always inflict some pain. But words -
and pictures - posted on the Internet, where they can be seen by anyone,
have taken bullying to a whole new level.
"I was completely devastated," Ricky says.
As younger and more kids get their hands on cellphone and digital
cameras and nearly ubiquitous high-speed Internet connections,
cyberbullying is ramping up and taking new forms.
No longer are threats, taunts and insults relegated to the written word
in chat rooms and instant messages. Now teens, children and sometimes
adults are adding pictures and videos to their bullying arsenal and
posting them on sites such as MySpace, Facebook and YouTube, where
anyone can see them.
And bullying has led to real consequences - from fights to teen
suicides, or what some label "bullycides." States are beginning to take
action with tough new laws targeting those who use electronic means to
bully.
Online harassment of American young people ages 10 to 17 increased 50%
(from 6% to 9%) from 2000 to 2005, according to the latest research
available, a watershed report by the University of New Hampshire's
Crimes Against Children Research Center. And the number of young people
who said they had "made rude or nasty comments to someone on the
Internet" increased from 14% to 28% in the same period.
But there hasn't been nearly enough research on the subject, says
Corinne David-Ferdon, a health scientist at the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
Compounding the frustration is that children often fail to report
bullying. They fear that tormentors will become angrier and bully them
more or worry that if they report being bullied over the Internet or on
a cellphone, their phone and Internet privileges will be revoked.
"This is an emerging public-health problem" that needs attention,
David-Ferdon says. The problem gained visibility with news about high
school girls getting in trouble after posting school fights on YouTube.
Five girls from Lakeland, Fla., face charges over an incident March 30
in which they are accused of participating in the beating of a
16-year-old acquaintance in retaliation
for her saying nasty things
about them on MySpace. They videotaped the beating and planned to post
it on MySpace and YouTube, says Chip Thullbery, state attorney spokesman
in Polk County.
The sheriff decided to release it to deal with news media interest, the
Associated Press reported.
"Girlfight" videos have become so ubiquitous that the search term
"girlfight" brings up thousands of videos on YouTube.
"You're bullied twice," says Nancy Willard, author of Cyber-Safe Kids,
Cyber-Savvy Teens and Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats. "You're bullied in
the real world with a physical attack, and then you're bullied online
with humiliation. It's very hurtful. Very, very hurtful."
In another publicized case, 13-year-old Megan Meier killed herself in
2006 after receiving devastating messages from someone masquerading as a
teen boy who had developed an online relationship with her. Authorities
prosecuted an adult, Lori Drew, 59, of Dardenne Prairie, Mo., on charges
that she was behind the hoax. Drew pleaded not guilty last month in Los
Angeles federal court.
"Cyberbullying is getting much worse, and it's affecting a lot of kids,"
says Bill Bond, a former principal who tours the country speaking to
principals about school violence on behalf of the National Association
of Secondary School Principals.
"Cyberbullying can be even more destructive" than face-to-face bullying
"because you get a sense that the whole world is being exposed to what
is being said to you."
That's just how Ricky feels.
"When they put it on the Internet, it's like they took everything and
multiplied it by an astronomical number," he says. "It's one thing if
it's a mean thing that somebody put in my school paper because that's
contained within a small area. Only a certain number of people will see
that. But when you put it on the Internet, you are opening it up to
everyone in the world."
Ricky called his mother the spring day he discovered the profile and had
her pick him up from school. He didn't have many friends to begin with.
But soon he found himself more alone than ever.
"I had thought about suicide," he says. "It looked very welcoming at
certain times." But he says his family is helping him cope.
His mother, Peggy Alatorre, 44, tells her son he just has to make it
through two more years of high school. But she's worried. "Does it hurt
him forever? You bet. Ricky has been crushed."
In the past few months, Alatorre has done everything she could think of
to remedy the situation. She talked to school officials. She contacted
the police, the FBI, local politicians. "I even e-mailed (President)
Bush."
MySpace eventually removed the profile - only after several weeks of
pestering the site, she says. Other than that, "everybody is passing the
buck."
Mike Chelap, assistant vice principal of Lowell High School, where Ricky
attends, says he can't discuss personal matters about students, but the
school began an anti-bullying program and will implement it in the fall.
Barbara Paris, now principal of Canyon Vista Middle School in Austin,
became an activist against cyberbullying after a girl at another school
where she worked had become suicidal after she was the victim of racial
and sexual taunts online. "When ... I had a child who was suicidal
because of people like me not doing anything about it, I had a paradigm
shift right there."
Politicians are starting to take note. Thirty-six states have
anti-bullying laws, according to Paris' watchdog group, Bully Police.
And several are specifically starting to address cyberbullying. On June
30, Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt signed an anti-Internet harassment law in
the wake of Megan Meier's death.
Also last month, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist signed the Jeffrey Johnston
Stand Up for All Students Act. The tough anti-cyberbullying law came
after the 2005 suicide of 15-year-old Jeffrey, who his mother says had
endured three years of torturous harassment over the Internet.
To those who say bullying is just part of childhood, Jeffrey's mother,
Debbie Johnston of Cape Coral, Fla., says that's "like saying rape is
part of marriage."
Jodee Blanco, who grew up the victim of bullies, agrees with the
sentiment. An author of two books on her own bullying experience, she
now is a consultant who travels the country to talk to schools -
including Ricky's.
"It's not that bullying is any worse today," she says. "The impulse for
cruelty is the same impulse. The only difference is that the tools to
achieve that have become more sophisticated."
But all the attention over cyberbullying is "a double-edged sword. In
one respect, America is finally waking up. And yes, it's due in large
part to the Internet. The flipside of that is it's also motivating a lot
of kids to be meaner. Because in their minds, it is such a cool tool to
show off how mean they can be."
'World's Oldest Blogger' Dies in Australia at 108
An Australian woman described as the world's oldest Internet blogger has
died at the age of 108 after posting a final message about singing "a
happy song" in her nursing home.
Olive Riley "passed away peacefully on July 12 and will be mourned by
thousands of Internet friends and hundreds of descendants and other
relatives," a note on her website said.
Riley had posted more than 70 entries on her blog from Woy Woy on the
east coast since February last year, sharing her thoughts on modern life
and her experiences living through the entire 20th century.
Born in the outback town of Broken Hill on October 20 1899, she lived
through two world wars and raised three children while doing various
jobs, including ranch cook and barmaid.
In her final post on June 26, she wrote: "I can't believe I've been here
in this nursing home for more than a week.
"How the days have flown, even though I've been in bed most of the time.
I still feel weak, and can't shake off that bad cough.
"Penny, who's in the next bed to mine, had a visit one day this week
from her daughter, who's a professional singer. Guess what happened! She
and I sang a happy song, as I do every day, and before long we were
joined by several nurses, who sang along too. It was quite a concert!"
Riley's blog, initially on www.allaboutolive.com.au and more recently at
http://worldsoldestblogger.blogspot.com, was "mind-blowing to her," her
great grandson Darren Stone said.
"She had people communicating with her from as far away as Russia and
America on a continual basis, not just once in a while," he told the
national AAP news agency.
"She enjoyed the notoriety - it kept her mind fresh."
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