The truth is still out there

A British citizen, Gary McKinnon, has been accused of committing the "biggest military computer hack of all time" by the U.S. government and he is fighting extradition to the U.S. If he is convicted, he can face up to 70 years in jail. He is accused of gaining entry into 97 U.S government computers including machines belonging to NASA and the Department of Defense. They also claim that he accessed passwords and deleted critical files from the Earle U.S. naval weapons station which crashed 300 computers for a day. McKinnon, in his defense, says that he only deleted files once, accidentally, and that he gained unauthorized access to military systems just to look for evidence of UFO conspiracies.
I wonder if he found anything.

Bill Gates wants to frisk you

Starting today, anyone who wants to update their Windows operating system will have to go through a piracy check. The exception to this rule is the update of critical security patches. Even a pirated copy of Windows will get the security patches while other add-ons will require validation. In an attempt to convert the users of pirated copies, Microsoft will reward the ones coming out of the closet with two options. Those who send in their pirated CDs, show proof they paid for it and fill out a piracy report will get a free copy of WinXP and those who do not have the CDS but will fill out a piracy report will get WinXP at a discounted price. We might find a bigger drive to buy pirated CDs, which will be surrendered to Bill in exchange for a legal copy of Windows XP (which will be free).
And you thought you couldn’t get good ideas from this website.

Earth Attacks!

MSN has now jumped onto the map bandwagon. Google Maps had got a lot of attention from their sites, Google Maps and Google Earth and it’s become tradition that Google releases a new technology and the rest follow. Anyways, MSN’s Virtual Earth is a map service and it has the usual features and also a ‘locate yourself’ feature. Using this feature, mobile users could pinpoint where they are. From there, they could easily find gas stations, restaurants, or whatever, provided that they are online. MSN Virtual Earth is in Beta stage right now and supports only the United States at this time.
Everyday, we are getting closer to ‘enemy of the state’. Now the terrorists can decide where they want to strike with better tools at their disposal. God help us.

Take me to your dealer…or just give me his Orkut ID

Brazilian police have arrested 10 people accused of selling drugs online. These drug dealers were using Google’s international social networking website, Orkut. Orkut allows members to join and set up online communities to discuss everything from doughnuts to drugs (I guess). Several million Brazilians have become devotees of Orkut since Google launched the networking site in January 2004. They make up more than half of Orkut's 7 million plus members. One can only join Orkut by invitation, so if someone needs a fix, ask me for an invite to Orkut.
Disclaimer: I signed up years back before the Brazilians got there.