general internet news - 19 February

[David Goldstein <goldstein_david@yahoo.com.au>]

China internet dissident arrested
A Chinese internet dissident who has been in detention
since October has been formally arrested on charges of
subversion.
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3494969.stm
 http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=7731

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=4370332
 http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/35619.html
 http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=9279

French minister urged to raise jailed cyber-dissident's
case during Vietnam visit
Reporters Without Borders today called on French
international aid minister Pierre-André Wiltzer to raise
the case of imprisoned cyber-dissident Pham Que Duong
during his visit to Vietnam at the end of February. The
organisation said Duong and his lawyers had been given no
opportunity to prepare the defence properly and it
therefore feared that the trial would be a "complete
travesty".
 http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=9276
 http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=9277 (Espanol)
 http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=9275 (Francais)

nz: Pornography warning for teachers
The secondary teachers union is warning its members there
is no public tolerance for pornography in schools.

http://onenews.nzoom.com/onenews_detail/0,1227,255450-1-454,00.html

ca: Net libel open to higher damages
Anonymous electronic postings magnify the damage of
defamatory comments made on-line and can lead to higher
damages being paid by those who libel others over the
Internet, an Alberta judge has found.

http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040211.gtrinternetlibel10/BNStory/Technology

uk: Goodbye ecstasy, hello 5-Meo-DMT: new designer drugs
are just a click away 
British recreational drug users are turning to a new
generation of designer class A drugs from the United States
as demand for ecstasy plummets.
The majority of these new drugs are powerful synthetic
psychedelics from the same chemical families as LSD, magic
mushrooms and mescaline. They are too new to have enticing
street names; instead their lengthy chemical names are
shortened to abbreviations such as 2C-I, 4-HO-DiPT, and
5-Meo-DMT. Unlike ecstasy, methamphetamine or other
synthetic recreational drugs, the new compounds are not
made in illicit factories or backroom kitchen laboratories.
Instead, "research chemicals", as they are euphemistically
known, are synthesised by commercial labs, often based in
the US, which openly sell their products on the internet.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Story/0,2763,1149014,00.html

ca: Boy learns on Net of his childhood abduction
The father of a boy taken from him 14 years ago by his
estranged wife says his son learned last year he'd been
abducted by seeing his own photograph on the Internet.

http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040217.gtb1feb17/BNStory/Technology

au: Scam emails imitate police
Computer criminals are using emails claiming to be from
federal police to access the files of home internet users,
the Australian High Tech Crime Centre warned.

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,8707873%5E15342%5E%5Enbv%5E15306-15319,00.html

http://www.itnews.com.au/storycontent.asp?ID=3&Art_ID=18365

ca: Web decision extends long arm of Ontario law
Few Internet law issues generate as much controversy as
jurisdiction. While most now accept that traditional law
applies online, the question of whose law should apply
online remains subject to considerable debate. Since
attempts to solve Internet jurisdiction issues through
international treaties have thus far largely failed,
individual courts have been left to grapple with the
problem on their own.

http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1076887504681&call_pageid=968350072197&col=969048863851
 http://www.canlii.org/on/cas/onsc/2004/2004onsc10181.html
(decision)

uk: New mobile phone scam promises prizes but could cost a
small fortune
Mobile phone users are facing the biggest spam nuisance to
date as computers bombard thousands of phones with a new
scam called "missed call marketing", the Guardian can
reveal.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/mobile/article/0,2763,1150247,00.html

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=4382316

ng: Internet Cafés 'Used for 419 Scam'
A Nigerian-based international network of fraudsters
preying on greedy and gullible people they trick into
believing elaborate "get rich quick" scams, is using Sea
Point internet cafés to perpetrate their crimes.
 http://allafrica.com/stories/200402170473.html

UK court asserts jurisdiction in Don King cyberlibel case
(from BNA Internet Law News)
The UK High Court has asserted jurisdiction in a libel
action launched by boxing promoter Don King against former
heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis arising from statements
that appear in two U.S. boxing websites. The court ruled
that publication is regarded as taking place where the
defamatory words are published and that publication of an
Internet posting takes place where it is downloaded. Case
name is King v. Lewis. Decision at
 http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2004/168.html

us: Sex in the workplace: 24 percent of workers engage in
sexually explicit or romantic computing, says poll
Nearly one-quarter of American workers have used company
computers for sexual or romantic purposes, according to an
independent poll commissioned by the world’s largest
network of employment and labor attorneys.
 http://www.agg.com/Contents/NewsArticleDetail.aspx?ID=864

us: Many Video Game Rating Labels Insufficient, Study Says 
 
Many teen-rated video games contain material that is not
listed on the label, including sexual themes, alcohol and
profanity, a study found. Given the results, parents should
be aware that popular T-rated video games might include a
wide range of unexpected content that could have a negative
influence on their children, said Harvard University
researchers Kevin Haninger and Kimberly Thompson.
 http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/7974269.htm

http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040217.gtgames0217/BNStory/Technology
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3486923.stm

Canadian music industry readies lawsuits
The Canadian music industry is going to court to seek the
identities of 29 online file-swappers, in preparation to
filing lawsuits similar to those that have targeted
hundreds of US computer users.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/0,39020645,39146225,00.htm
 http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;?storyID=4368290

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040217/RPIRA17

us: RIAA sues 531 more Internet users over music downloads
The recording industry sued 531 more computer users Tuesday
it said were illegally distributing songs over the Internet
in what has become a routine reminder reminder that college
students, teenagers and others can face expensive lawsuits
for swapping music online.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-02-17-music-downloads_x.htm
 http://www.bizreport.com/article.php?art_id=6196

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/02/17/downloading.suits.ap/index.html

au: Some workers say OK for boss to read employee email
Australian workers are evenly split on the question of
whether bosses should snoop on their email, according to a
survey.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/16/1076779883450.html

au: Spam, laborious spam, to stay on the menu
Spam will peak at 80 per cent of all emails by 2007 and
Australia's anti-spam legislation will do little to protect
local inboxes, according to an anti-spam expert.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/16/1076779895532.html

The fight against spam: Make 'em pay (sub req'd)
The short history of society's fight against spam—usually
defined as unwanted commercial e-mail—may be about to pass
into a significant third phase. In the first phase, it was
geeks who led the resistance, using techie weapons such as
e-mail filters with fancy Bayesian mathematics. In the
second phase, politicians joined in, eager to get their
names on to new legislation—in America, for instance, 36
states and Congress have passed laws of some sort against
spam. Now, in the third phase, the economists are taking
over.

http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displayStory.cfm?subjectid=348963&story_id=2430299

Virus warnings a new kind of spam
Spurious “virus detected” messages are threatening to
become a serious new spam concern. In the wake of every
major new worm a flood of messages results from attacks
being bounced by the recipient’s anti-virus software to the
alleged sender.

http://www.computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/UNID/F99C8656374C090DCC256E3C00750EE2

au: Ticketmaster7 privacy errors highlight industry wide
problem (news release)
"I am disappointed that businesses, covered by the Privacy
Act for over 2 years, are still making fundamental errors,"
said Federal Privacy Commissioner, Malcolm Crompton.
 http://www.privacy.gov.au//news/media/04_01.html

us: Court: eBay's off the hook over feedback
Be careful when reading feedback left in online auctions:
eBay and similar Web sites are not required to remove
information that's false or even libelous, a court has
decided.
 http://news.com.com/2100-1028-5156094.html
 http://www.metnews.com/articles/2004/ebay020604.htm

Lindows adopts new name for Low Countries
The Linux seller has dropped several letters of its name so
that it can resume trading in the Netherlands, Belgium and
Luxembourg.
 http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39146617,00.htm

Europeans Reject Offer by Microsoft
European antitrust regulators have rebuffed an offer by
Microsoft to include rivals’ audio and video playing
software in the form of CD-ROM’s.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/18/technology/18soft.html
 http://www.iht.com/articles/130070.html

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/02/17/HNeurejects_1.html

Gartner questions Microsoft's commitment to security
Research firm Gartner issued a note late last week that
raises serious questions about Microsoft's internal
commitment to rid its operating system of security holes
that make worms such as MS Blaster, SQL Slammer, and Code
Red possible.

http://www.itnews.com.au/storycontent.asp?ID=9&Art_ID=18347

uk: Women outspending men on internet
Women have discovered the same aptitude for internet
shopping, that some have for hitting the high street.
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3494181.stm

http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/news/story.jsp?story=492116

New Bagle virus set to spread
A variant of the mass-mailing Bagle virus seems to have
taken off a bit faster than the original--and its intent
could be spam-related.
 http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5160268.html

Nokia sees powerful mobile future
Nokia's Jorma Ollila predicts in a decade, everything we do
on computers, we will do on mobiles.
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3495655.stm

Search wars are about to get personal
Web surfers are anything but loyal when it comes to their
favorite search engines, according to new research that
could give hope to Net titans Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN as
they seek to wrest the search crown from Google.
 http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5158591.html

nz: Howard looks at judicial review
TelstraClear chief executive Rosemary Howard says the telco
is considering whether it could seek a judicial review of
the Commerce Commission's final recommendations on local
loop unbundling.
 http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2815190a28,00.html

uk: Web user numbers still growing
The number of internet connections in the UK is still
growing, with broadband services by far the largest driver
for new subscriptions.

http://www.silicon.com/networks/webwatch/0,39024667,39118456,00.htm

nz: Public sector websites to be more accessible
Public sector websites will become much more accessible
with the adoption of an approved set of web guidelines
across the public sector, State Services Minister Trevor
Mallard announced today.

http://www.beehive.govt.nz/ViewDocument.cfm?DocumentID=18919
 http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=8237

nz: New start for Government legislation online project
The stalled project to put Government legislation on the
web could be rebooted.
 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3549609

OECD Identifies "Disappointing" Use of ICT in Upper
Secondary Schools
Major investment outlays over the past 20 years have
brought modern Information and Communications Technologies
(ICT) into nearly all schools in the most advanced OECD
countries, but the extent to which computers are in
day-to-day use in these schools remains disappointing,
according to a new OECD report.

http://www.oecd.org/document/18/0,2340,en_2649_201185_26302546_1_1_1_1,00.html

my: SchoolNet gets moving
The 10,000-school SchoolNet broadband network pro ject is
expected to kick off this year, with the Government
currently finalising details for the massive project.

http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2004/2/13/technology/7316449&sec=technology

Europe's most powerful computer switched on
International Business Machines, the world's largest
computer company, says it has switched on Europe's most
powerful supercomputer at Germany's Juelich research
centre.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=4365176
 http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/61/35623.html

Rural Americans Less Likely to Use Internet-Survey
Despite steady gains, rural Americans are still less likely
to use the Internet than their urban and suburban
counterparts, a survey released on Tuesday showed.
 http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;?storyID=4379266
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=====
David Goldstein
 address: 2/4 Dundas Street
             COOGEE NSW 2034
             AUSTRALIA
 email: Goldstein_David@yahoo.com.au
 phone: +61 418 228 605 - mobile; +61 2 9665 0015 - home

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