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+ - eBay Hijacking->

Submitted by canuck57
canuck57 writes "CBC is running a story on eBay hijacking where people are losing money, makes a good case to escrow sizable transactions:

A Calgary man is one of 1,000 Canadians who have been scammed on eBay through a tactic known as hijacking, and the RCMP says the online auction service is not co-operating with their criminal investigations.

Shaqir Duraj, a Calgary bakery owner, won an eBay auction for a car in early October. He thought he was dealing with a reputable seller with a 98 per cent customer satisfaction rating.
http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2007/12/03/ebay-hijack.html"
Link to Original Source
The Almighty Buck

+ - Canadian police accuse eBay of complicity in scams

Submitted by dirkin
dirkin writes "The CBC is reporting on a story about a Calgary man who was a victim of a hijacking scam on eBay. In the story, an RCMP representative indicates that eBay has been covering up the problem, and that they will not even return phone calls from police, much less the victims. The RCMP assessment is blunt: 'They don't want to share this intelligence... I don't think it will be in the best interest of eBay to say that X number of Canadian consumers have been the victim of a fraud.'"
United States

+ - Internet Thought Police Bill Before Congress-> 2

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes "A new bill is before congress that is expected to approved and will establish a new federal commission tasked with investigating Americans with "extremist belief systems" and those who may engage in "ideologically based violence." The article also mentions a chilling quote from the bill that has already made it past the House of Representatives (by 404-6):

The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.
"Extremist belief systems?" <sarcasm>None of that on Slashdot!</sarcasm>"
Link to Original Source
The Almighty Buck

+ - Who Are the Heavy Clickers? 3

Submitted by
Reservoir Hill
Reservoir Hill writes "While focusing on clicks makes a lot of sense in search advertising, since the audience has already been highly qualified by their search term and is "hand-raising" — announcing their interest in a particular product or service or activity — what about banner ads on Web pages where the audience is not in an active search-and-buy mode? Dave Morgan has an interesting post on his blog about research done analyzing behavioral and click data to determine who clicks on banner ads, and whether they are different than the Web population in general. Ninety-nine percent of Web users do not click on ads on a monthly basis. Of the 1% that do, most only click once a month. Less than two tenths of one percent click more often. That tiny percentage makes up the vast majority of banner ad clicks. Who are these "heavy clickers"? They are predominantly female, indexing at a rate almost double the male population. They are older. They are predominantly Midwesterners, with some concentrations in Mid-Atlantic States and in New England. Not surprisingly, they look at sweepstakes far more than any other kind of content. They are the same people that tend to open direct mail and love to talk to telemarketers. Morgan makes the point that focusing banner ad campaigns to optimize on clicks means skewing campaigns to optimize on middle-aged women from the Midwest."
Music

+ - UO Investigates RIAA for Spying->

Submitted by
Mr. E
Mr. E writes "University of Oregon officials have asked a federal judge to let them investigate charges that the RIAA is spying on UO students. While it's not clear how they believe that the RIAA has accessed confidential student information, they make it sound like the RIAA was sniffing the network. Had the RIAA done so, they would have access to all unencrypted information on the network, which is likely to contain things like passwords and private emails in addition to evidence of copyright infringement they are after. UO officials note that, while they do not condone copyright infringement, they have a duty under the law to protect student privacy and to investigate those who may have violated it. RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said that they were "surprised and disappointed" by this investigation."
Link to Original Source
Censorship

+ - Livejournal censors post about haircuts

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "The popular blogging site Livejournal has introduced a new "feature" that hides entries behind a warning that you might be about to view adult content. The warnings don't seem to follow any rhyme or reason — so far I've clicked through them to read about a friend's haircut and another friend getting stuck in the snow."
Biotech

+ - Tree Frogs Inspire Reusable Superglue [pics]->

Submitted by
grrlscientist
grrlscientist writes "Do you like to sneakily unwrap your gifts before Christmas to learn what they are? Well, scientists are helping you do this by developing a new reusable adhesive superglue!

From the story: The reason that conventional tape cannot be reused is because the adhesive forms permanent cracks when peeled from a surface. While these tiny cracks allow tape to be removed, they also render it useless. But a team of scientists, led by Abhijit Majumder at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India, discovered that the adhesive on the toe pads of tree frogs and crickets contain microscopic channels that prevent cracking when they are peeled from a surface."
Link to Original Source
The Courts

+ - Judge allows RIAA expert to testify->

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Judge David G. Trager has ruled that Dr. Doug Jacobson can testify as an expert in UMG v. Lindor even though Dr. Jacobson had conceded at his deposition that his method satisfied none of the "reliability factors" enunciated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U. S. 579 (1993) and that he had no reason to think MediaSentry's materials — upon which Jacobson's testimony was based — could satisfy them either. The Daubert factors are "(1) whether a theory or technique "can be and has been tested," (2) whether the theory or technique has been subjected to peer review and publication, (3) a technique's known or potential rate of error, and the existence and maintenance of standards controlling the technique's operation, and (4) whether a particular technique or theory has gained general acceptance in the relevant scientific community". Judge Trager dismissed these as mere "suggestions" by the high court, but could point to no cases where any other judge had allowed expert testimony where not a single Daubert reliability factor had been satisfied."
Link to Original Source
Spam

Spam Lawsuit's Last Laugh is at Hormel's Expense 172

Posted by Zonk
from the junk-email-junk-email-eggs-and-junk-email dept.
Brian Cartmell writes "An article at the Minneapolis — StarTribune site covers a significant setback for the Hormel food company, in a case that's being closely watched by security companies across the country. Seattle-based Spam Arrest has gone up against the creator of the food substance in court, fighting for the right to use the word spam in its company name. The US Trademark Trial and Appeal board has sided with the spam fighters, agreeing that consumers of the Spam product would never confuse the food with junk email. 'Derek Newman, Spam Arrest's attorney, said the decision opens the door for many other anti-spam software companies ... "Spam Arrest fought this battle for the whole software industry," Newman said.'"
Patents

+ - Piracy Can Be Good: in non-geek language->

Submitted by
crazybilly
crazybilly writes "Explaining why piracy isn't bad for businesses can be difficult, especially when talking to nontechnical people. Globeandmail.com provides an article explaining not only why piracy isn't necessary bad for business buy how piracy has benefited buisnesses and artist (including Hollywood) in the past. Using historical examples, ranging from Daniel Defoe to the VCR, they make a strong case for why the RIAA and company ought to relax."
Link to Original Source
Security

+ - NZ teen accused of being cyber crime kingpin-> 3

Submitted by
davetv
davetv writes "A YOUNG New Zealand man has been accused of leading a group of cyber criminals who caused at least $US20 million ($A22.7 million) damage around the world. In a joint investigation between New Zealand Police, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Dutch authorities, the home of an 18-year-old known online as AKILL was raided on Wednesday."
Link to Original Source
Privacy

+ - Judge orders release of lobbying for immunity data

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Today's Washpost carries and AP story noting a judge's order to the Feds to provide information on lobbying efforts of Telco's to gain immunity from prosectution. The order comes in the class action case by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T for giving the NSA access to it's networks. This order will likely produce little information which is not redacted and claimed to be necessary to nat'l security but in so doing will only demonstrate the degree of gov't-corporate collusion in avoidance of some of the most basic cornerstones of this democracy — and need for these issues to be heard in higher courts. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/28/AR2007112802318.html"
Government

Canada's New DMCA Considered Worst Copyright Law 234

Posted by kdawson
from the outdoing-the-southern-neighbours dept.
loconet writes "The government of Canada is preparing to attempt to bring a new DMCA-modeled copyright law in Canada in order to comply with the WIPO treaties the country signed in 1997. (These treaties were also the base of the American DMCA.) The new Canadian law will be even more restrictive in nature than the American version and worse than the last Canadian copyright proposal, the defeated Bill C-60. Among the many restrictive clauses in this new law, as Michael Geist explains, is the total abolishment of the concept of fair use: 'No parody exception. No time shifting exception. No device shifting exception. No expanded backup provision. Nothing.' Geist provides a list of 30 things that can be done to address the issues."
Music

EMI May Cut Funding To RIAA, IFPI 158

Posted by kdawson
from the return-on-investment dept.
Teen Bainwolf notes a report that Big Four record label EMI, which is under new ownership, is considering a big cut in its funding for the IFPI and RIAA. Each of the labels reportedly contributed over $132 million per year to fund industry trade groups, and EMI apparently believes that money could be better spent elsewhere. "One of the chief activities of the RIAA is coordinating the Big Four labels' legal campaign, and those thousands of lawsuits have done nothing but generate ill will from record fans, while costing the labels millions of dollars and doing little (if anything) to actually reduce the amount of file-sharing going on."
Security

SPAM: Reported malfunction in PayPal Security Key 1

Journal by Jeremiah Cornelius

In association with VeriSign, PayPal rolled out their one-time-password Security Key earlier this year. Generating six random digits every 30 seconds, the small electronic token provided an additional layer of authentication against phishing attacks. But, according to an IT administrator who has used the PayPal Security Key for several months now, a bug could allow phishers to bypass the measure. Chris Romero s

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