Slashback tonight brings some clarifications and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including: iTunes 7.0, Wal-Mart threatens studios over iTunes sales, debate over a proposal to fund Debian, and Googling for ATM master passwords. Read on for details.

jayrtfm writes "Last year the Kurtztown Area High School approved a program which gave every student an iBook. Now 13 students face felony charges for violating the district's usage policy." From the article: "Shrawder said the secret password '50Trexler,' was widely-known among the student body and distributed early in the school year. It allowed between 80 and 100 students to reconfigure their laptops, he said. The more computer-savvy students began to disable the administrations' ability to spy on the students' computer use. For others, it became a game, trying to outsmart the administration and compete with fellow students who held the secret, Shrawder said."

Iphtashu Fitz writes "CNet News is reporting that the US Secret Service in conjunction with authorities in six foreign countries have arrested 28 people in the last 48 hours on charges of identity theft, computer fraud, credit card fraud and conspiracy. Dubbed Operation Firewall, the Secret Service identified a group of people who stole over 1.7 million credit card numbers as well as a passport-forging facility in Bulgaria. The investigation started in July 2003 when the Secret Service began investigating an unspecified financial crime. They identified the website Shadowcrew.com whose members traded tutorials and information about identity theft and forgery and exchanged sensitive personal and financial information. The Shadowcrew website has since undergone a makeover thanks to the Secret Service. A press release about the operation can also be found on their website."

We've reviewed Wall Street Meat, by Andy Kessler. Andy's recently released Running Money. Below is an excerpt from the book, which we'll be reviewing soon; I've read it already and whole-heartedly enjoyed it.

sandalwood writes "A programmer has been arrested on charges of attempting to "threaten Google with a software program he devised that creates phony clicks on pop-up advertisements delivered by Google. Google pays Web site publishers companies a certain amount for legitimate hits on those ads, but Bradley created a method that generates false clicks that appeared to be real Internet traffic, which would have repeatedly defrauded Google... Bradley contacted Google in early March, informing company officials that he had created the program and wanted $100,000 to keep him from selling it to spammers, according to an affidavit by a U.S. Secret Service agent." A harbinger of organized crime to come? That's a real nice website you have here... a shame if anything were to happen to it..."

Alex Moskalyuk writes "There are dozens of titles on 'corporate excellence.' Management types like them. They teach the best practices from known companies and let you know how ABC Inc. or XYZ Corp. became such a glorious business as it is. In Search of Excellence (ISBN: 0446385077) is one of them, deserving the title of 'management bible' from its publishers. Apart from the minor detail that some of the data in the book was faked. At times like these, where do you turn for a good management advice?" Read on for Alex's review of an alternative text, Merrill R. Chapman's In Search of Stupidity.

Okay, former DrinkOrDie member and convicted warez dude Chris Tresco got his answers to your questions back to us, so here they are. (Note: Chris does not advise you to follow in his footsteps.)

Your intrepid reporter took a jaunt down to the H2K2 conference this past weekend, held in the lovely Hotel Pennsylvania. The conference had much more floor space than they had two years ago, and it seemed like more attendance as well. Wireless networks were available, though overcrowded, and if you didn't encrypt your communications, well, you've probably already paid the price. My notes on the conference and the sessions I attended are below, followed by a couple of reader submissions.

Slashback tonight brings you word on a games contest, an update to the famous spider-goat hybrid which grossed you out months ago, bad news for Galileo's last days, passable news for anyone following the David McOwen story and more. Read on for the updates :)

Imagine Slashdot closing its Your Rights Online section because you no longer have any rights online, and find many of your other rights severely curtailed, too. Saturday a small group of people, including U.S. Representative Lynn Rivers, from Michigan's 13th Congressional District, met in the University of Maryland Baltimore County [UMBC] library to discuss ways to maintain Americans' civil liberties despite major pressure to curtail them in the name of "fighting terrorism." The government does listen, you know, if you speak to the right people in the right way. So here's a guide, a HOWTO, if you will, that will teach you how to lobby effectively for your Constitutional rights.

No surprise that Friday's The Message from Seattle column drew some heat here. But as happened after Columbine last year, the resulting testimony and e-mail - about Seattle (and Slashdot, too, which has become a model for some of the protester's software) - was powerful. Here are some of those perspectives, and a bonus -- you can listen to the riots in realtime with WinAmp:

Okay, here you go: answers to your questions about future implications of the recent Microsoft Findings of Fact in great depth, brought to you by four expert Slashdot readers, three of whom are antitrust attorneys. Their credentials appeared in Monday's Call for Questions. Thanks to everyone for their question submissions. The quality was so high that picking the best ones was rough. (Click below for the full Q&A session.)

Monday we got a whole bunch of questions for Nitrozac, the shadowy, boot-wearing creator of the After Y2k! online comic strip. We tossed out all the "Are you really a woman?" questions; I've talked to her more than once and assure you that she is indubitably female and, as she puts it, "slightly over 25." A little inside note for y'all: Nitrozac has lots of female fans who think Taco and Hemos are "hot." This should give hope to all male, female-lacking geeks out there! But let's have Nitrozac speak in her own (laughworthy) words. The complete Q&A sesion is below. Enjoy!

For more than a decade, various law enforcement agencies -- perhaps in need of bad guys to replace Soviet spies and jailed Mafia bosses -- have warred in a very public way against hackers, maligned by both media and law enforcement as a dangerous menace. So Kevin Mitnick ends up doing more jail time than a true convicted robber baron like Michael Milken. This stereotype is as false as it is dumb. Real hackers don't steal, vandalize or damage. They are most often freedom-loving and generous problem solvers and information sharers.

John Dillinger wasn't nailed with much more fanfare than the alleged creator of the now-famed Melissa virus, whose apprehension in New Jersey a few days ago drew a governor and a platoon of state, local and federal cyber-cops. This syndrome is becoming almost ritualistic. The virus and the arrest tell us a lot about Crime and Hype; Technological Hostility, and Closing the Distance that makes so much online hostility so easy.