"Giving money and power to government," P.J. O'Rourke has written, "is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." Exhibit A: What began as a Washington idea to help people in China and Iran sneak one past their countries' censors may have become a way to censor what those Chinese and Iranian citizens see online.
"Technology used by the [U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau], which puts out the Voice of America broadcasts, prevents [Chinese and Iranian citizens] from visiting Web addresses that include a peculiar list of verboten keywords," says Internet journalist Declan McCullagh, citing a report by the OpenNet initiative, about what started as a plan to help Chinese and Iranians keep the censors from keeping them away from such subversive haunts as the BBC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Amnesty International.
And what might those naughty keywords be? Says McCullagh: "Ass," meaning Chinese and Iranian citizens shouldn't even think about trying to visit - hold your laughter until I'm finished - usembassy.state.gov; "breast," meaning rotsa ruck looking for help at breastcancer.com; "hot," which means Uncle Nanny thinks you're doing naughty things by e-mailing through Hotmail.com; "pic," guaranteed to keep you from getting hip to the Electronic Privacy Information Center; and, "teens," never mind that your target might actually be teens.drugabuse.gov.
On second thought, maybe, by comparison, we are safer giving whiskey and the car keys to teenage boys....
We'd like to know what Connections USA - doing business as iServe.com - was drinking in January, when they were indicted in a money-laundering plan with Regpay of Belarus, a plan involving cleaning up Regpay's (the former TrustBill) processing payments for child porn Websites by sending the money to Latvian accounts. We're pretty sure the Fort Lauderdale-based Connections would rather drink castor oil on the rocks than have to plead guilty as they did May 3. Especially because they also agreed to give up $1.1 million and dissolve its business.
"It's one of the first prosecutions of its type," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Carlos F. Ortiz. "Our goal is to go after such companies and put them out of business." Until the feds raided them last June, former chief executive Eugene Valentine testified, Connections/iServe was said to have processed almost a million a month, keeping eleven percent in commissions. Four Regpay leaders were indicted in January, according to the Associated Press, with three busted last summer in Europe and one still on the loose.
From processing child porn to possessing it, a former Town of Summit (WI) school bus driver pleaded guilty May 5 to five counts of possessing it. Mark J. Kroening could get 17 1/2 years in prison, but part of the plea deal is that the district attorney will recommend only that he go to the can, not how long he stays in. Kroening will be sentenced July 8. And half way around the world, 13 men have been charged for child porn out of 18 arrested May 5 in Hong Kong. And a new report from Irish Internet watchdog Hotline says reports of child porn from Irish Netizens doubled from July 2001 to July 2003.
Enough of the grotesquery for now. There's a new spring 2004 report out ranking companies according to customer satisfaction in cyberspace, and it says Nike scored the highest among the apparel companies while Van Heusen scored the lowest. HON topped the furniture companies while Leggett & Platt hit bottom. Jacuzzi was the highest among the home equipment/furnishing people and Masco was the lowest, while Clorox topped the household product makers and Stanley ranked bottom. And in toys? Mattel was beaten out by Hasbro. The study was done by the Customer Respect Group.
An Indiana University student got no respect from an Internet scam this week. He thought he won an Internet sweepstakes lottery, but all he got was cleaned out of $18,000, after he sent the money via e-mail, telephone, and fax in several weeks trying to get the big payoff.
Is there good news tonight? Yes - kind of. That pestiferous Sasser worm - which F-Secure is trying to confirm might be the handiwork of one or several authors of Netsky - began stabilizing and even falling a little bit May 4. But that may be the extent of the good news about it for now. Experts have told the Associated Press far fewer computers would have been sassed by Sasser if their owners had configured them automatically to get the latest security fixes. Since April 30, Sasser has hampered British Airways and Delta flights, public hospitals in Hong Kong, about a third of Taiwan's post office branches, several major corporations around the world, and an awful lot of home users. F-Secure and Symantec have cleanup tools available. Grab them.
