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Spam

Beat Spam Using Hashcash 324

Posted by timothy from the variation-on-a-theme dept.
Shell writes "If they want to send spam, make them pay a price. Built on the widely available SHA-1 algorithm, hashcash is a clever system that requires a parameterizable amount of work on the part of a requester while staying "cheap" for an evaluator to check. In other words, the sender has to do real work to put something into your inbox. You can certainly use hashcash in preventing spam, but it has other applications as well, including keeping spam off of Wikis and speeding the work of distributed parallel applications." If you're specifically interested in hashcash for your mail server, Camram has some interesting ideas -- their Frequently Raised Objections page may be illuminating.
America Online

AOL to be Split into 4 Units 294

Posted by CmdrTaco from the all-four-dedicated-to-mailing-me-crap dept.
unsupported writes "AOL is apparently dividing into four units to provide a clear direction for each. The four divisions are as follows: Audience (Advertising, and AOL IM, Moviefon, Mapquest, Netscape.com), Access (dial-up, highspeed), AOL Europe (for the foreigners), and Digital Services (Premium services, phone and music subscription). "
Science

Optimal 24 mark Golomb Ruler Proven 46

Posted by michael from the number-crunching dept.
globring writes "Four years ago, distributed.net users undertook the search for the optimal 24 mark Golomb Ruler. This year sees the successful conclusion of that effort. The diagram of the optimal ruler can be seen here. If you have no idea what a Golomb Ruler is, you can read up on them. Work on finding the optimal 25 mark ruler is still in progress."
Star Wars Prequels

Star Wars Episode III Teaser Trailer Today 510

Posted by CmdrTaco from the post-links-if-they-show-up dept.
gotroot801 writes "TheForce.net reports that the Episode III teaser trailer will be available today for viewing on several TV shows in the US (MTV's TRL, Access Hollywood) and Australia (Today Show). In addition, starwars.com Hyperspace members and AOL customers will be able to download the trailer today."
America Online

AOL Subscribers Finding Greener Pastures 259

Posted by michael from the slightly-less-of-america dept.
Mitch writes "The Register is reporting that America Online has lost close to 2 million customers since September 2003. At the end of September they had 22.7 million customers in the US which was down more than 500,000 since the beginning of the quarter. This news comes one day after it was announced that more than 700 jobs would be cut from Virginia offices by the end of this year."
Graphics

Microsoft Patents The Broken y-Axis 20

Posted by timothy from the what-the-heck-it's-only-a-legal-monopoly dept.
theodp writes "Microsoft was granted a patent Tuesday for Displaying data containing outlying data items, covering the familiar concept of broken y-axis bar charts. Oddly, Microsoft's 2002 'invention' is described in detail in a 1999 listserv post and found its way into scientific journals and other sources before the patent's claims were disclosed. BTW, the patent's term was extended by 269 days, apparently the USPTO's way of apologizing for initially rejecting the patent."
Hardware Hacking

Getting a USB Peripheral Idea to Market? 67

Posted by Cliff from the turning-possibilities-into-realities dept.
WillAdams asks: "I have an idea for an almost embarrassingly simple USB device, which I believe would be fairly popular --- no hardware or device driver development skills though. Ideally I'd like to approach a company, hand the product idea off and just collect a small royalty. Unfortunately the most obvious choice doesn't accept product submissions. Any suggestions?"
Spam

AOL Files First Spim Lawsuit 234

Posted by CowboyNeal from the we're-not-gonna-take-it dept.
Iphtashu Fitz writes "CNet News is reporting that 4 major internet providers - AOL, Earthlink, Microsoft, and Yahoo, have filed another bunch of lawsuits against spammers. What makes this round interesting is that AOL has filed the first ever lawsuit against against spam that targets Instant Messenger clients, or spim. So far spim has only affected relatively small numbers of users but the problem is growing, which is why AOL is targeting it now."
Spam

First Felony Spam Trial Gets Underway 43

Posted by timothy from the your-assets-are-grass dept.
Iphtashu Fitz writes "Three people faced a judge in Virginia today to answer felony charges for allegedly sending millions of spams touting to AOL users. The defendants are being tried under a 2003 Virginia anti-spam law that prosecutors say is the harshest of its kind in the nation. If convicted on all counts they each face up to 15 years in prison. Prosecutors allege that one of the defendants attempted to send 7.7 million spams in a single day that touted penny stocks and software to let people work at home as a "FedEx refund processor". Defense lawyers contend that the prosecutors will be unable to prove that the defendants intentionally masked the origin of the spam nor that it was unsolicited. The defense was also concerned that the jury pool might not be objective if it was filled with AOL users."
It's funny. Laugh.

Would You Drink This Water? 583

Posted by michael from the tastes-like-chicken dept.
theodp writes "NEWater looks like any other glacier-clear bottled H20. Except, reports Salon, it gushes from the toilets of Singapore instead of a bubbling spring. NEWater is the product of Singapore's new water-treatment system, and it's wastewater that's been purified through advanced synthetic membranes called ZeeWeed, which could help 20% of the world's population that doesn't have easy access to clean water."
Microsoft

The Man Who Could Have Been Bill Gates 458

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
theodp writes "BusinessWeek discusses They Made America, a new book which claims Bill Gates got the rewards due Gary Kildall. The book attacks the reputations of key early PC era players - Gates, IBM, and QDOS programmer Tim Paterson - asserting that Paterson copied parts of Kildall's CP/M and that IBM tricked Kildall, allowing Gates to prevail and depriving Kildall of untold riches and credit for a seminal role in the PC revolution. Some material came from an unpublished memoir penned by Kildall after the University of Washington, where Kildall earned a PhD, picked Harvard dropout Gates as keynote speaker for the 25th anniversary of its CS program."
Communications

Transistor Radio Turns 50 175

Posted by timothy from the led-to-other-things dept.
theodp writes "Before the iPod, there was the Regency TR-1. Fifty years ago Monday, tiny Indianapolis-based I.D.E.A. partnered with TI and shook the world with the first pocket-sized AM radio, so impressing IBM chief Tom Watson that he provided a $49.95 (roughly $345 in current dollars!), four transistor TR-1 to each of his senior managers to kick-start the company's transition from valves."
The Courts

Judge's Ruling Spares 1-Click 120

Posted by timothy from the press-1-for-dismissal-or-stay-on-the-line dept.
theodp writes "Agreeing with Amazon's characterization of its 1-Click feature as a feature of an electronic product ordering system and not an electronic fund transfer or transaction system, a Judge has tossed out a $50M lawsuit that threatened Amazon's 1-Click patent. But outside of Court, Amazon touts its patent-pending Amazon Honor System as a way for Web sites to use 1-Click shopping technology for voluntary payment transactions - most notably for 9-11 donations and campaign contributions - that do not involve consumer goods or Amazon-specified prices, which the Judge argues are essential 1-Click ingredients."
Lord of the Rings

LotR: RotK Extended Edition Preview Available 148

Posted by timothy from the ha-ha-only-the-preview dept.
Topoimagery writes "After months of speculation and a few low-quality bootleg video clips, we finally get some official video from New Line. The Official Lord of the Rings Site has a preview of the upcoming Return of the King EE in Quicktime format. Here are direct links to the small version (4 MB) and large version (9 MB). Highlights include Voice of Saruman, Mouth of Sauron, Houses of Healing, and Aragorn confronting Sauron. Released date is December 14, and you can pre-order now. (For those of you who can't get enough spoilers, here's a site describing all anticipated new scenes on the DVD)."
The Internet

Netscape Turns 10 299

Posted by samzenpus from the almost-a-teenager dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Today marks ten years since the first public beta of Netscape Navigator was released. Both CNet News.com and MozillaZine have full coverage, with the former revealing that AOL is planning to release a new version Netscape in the New Year (thankfully separate from the IE-based version of AOL's browser). Even the Netscape portal (which never mentions the Netscape browser) is celebrating the anniversary. A lot of water has passed under the bridge in the last decade (especially since AOL bought Netscape) and the baton has now passed onto the Netscape alumni-filled Mozilla Foundation, but it's still worth remembering that Netscape changed the world not once (by making the first really good browser), but twice (by being the first major commercial program to go open source)."
Patents

You Might Be a Microsoft Patent Infringer 102

Posted by timothy from the the-easy-way dept.
theodp writes "Do you use drop-down menus, alphanumerical input boxes, check boxes, radio buttons or sliders to allow client side-processing of data? Utilize SQL, HTML, ActiveX, Java, Perl, JavaScript or JScript to do so? Employ arrays, stacks, queues, linked lists, or decision trees to organize things? Well Bunky, you might be infringing on Microsoft's new patent for Dynamically adjusting data values and enforcing valid combinations of the data in response to remote user input, which the USPTO granted Tuesday after 6+ years and two rejections."
America Online

AOL Builds New IE-Based Browser 360

Posted by michael from the mozilla-deemed-harmful dept.
jfruhlinger writes "According to News.com.com.com, America Online is preparing to release a free AOL-branded browser that is 'based on Microsoft's Internet Explorer technology.' The browser will be available to users who don't have AOL as their ISP. I admit that I find this development baffling -- not only does AOL already own a browser, but why on earth would a non-AOL user want to use an AOL-branded version of IE?"
Security

Would You Hire A Hacker? 466

Posted by timothy from the depends-on-circumstances dept.
theodp writes "A German security company has divided opinion in the IT industry by offering a job to the teen charged with creating Sasser. Silicon.com asks its CIO Jury: Would you hire a hacker? and finds the jury split down the middle, with one IT Director saying doing so would be like hiring serial-killing doctor Harold Shipman to treat your ailing and aged mother."
The Courts

Order in the e-Court! 286

Posted by michael from the judge92-gives-voice-to-witness35 dept.
theodp writes "Every word spoken in the e-Courtroom where Branden Basham is on trial for his life appears immediately before the judge on a computer screen. There's a flat-screen monitor between every two seats in the jury box, a witness-box monitor with touch-screen features, and large-screen monitors for public viewing. Lawyers say e-Courtrooms help reduce trial time by making evidence display and tracking documents more efficient. 'It made the Chadrick Fulks' case three to five days shorter,' said an Assistant U.S. Attorney, referring to Basham's co-defendant, who plead guilty and was sentenced to death."

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