'Pain in the butt' customer gets email short shrift

If you're at a loose end this afternoon and fancy copping a bit of an email earful, try throwing a query over to technical support at CCTV outfit Gadspot.com.* The reply is likely to surprise and delight, as one Reg reader found out:

Universal Serial Butt?

Bot too hot? Then you need the USB cheek chiller, a PC-powered cooling seat cushion now on offer from those crazy folks at Japanese gadget specialist Thanko.

Internet attorney Eric J. Sinrod says the brave new world of virtual worlds creates a constellation of new--and still foggy--legal questions.

World's most annoying adverts cleared

Apple's recent campaign claiming its machines were more secure and less likely to crash or pick up a virus than Windows PCs has been cleared by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

Indian problem could be worldwide

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has closed its online service for visa applicants from India while it investigates a security breach that made the personal details of visa applicants available online.

The folks over at Daniweb have submitted their story about the online visa application system in India. Approximately a year ago, someone who was using the system ran into a problem, where all the work he had done in filling out the application seemed to disappear, and the back button wasn't work. So he tried making small changes to the URL... which gave him access to someone else's visa application. There are plenty of online systems that do this, but you would expect something a little more secure when it comes to government documents that include all sorts of personal info. The guy notified those responsible, and his alert was promptly ignored. It was only after they were contacted a second time, by the person writing the article about it, that they took it seriously enough to finally plug the hole. With governments leaking data all the time, is it any wonder that people don't feel particularly safe when the government wants even more data from us, while promising that there's no way it would ever be leaked?