Sami Omar al-Hussayen claims all he did was help keep some Websites webbing, but the federal government claims otherwise, and they won a big one in court to help them prove their case. A federal judge May 18 said prosecutors laid enough of a foundation to argue the University of Idaho graduate student conspired with the Islamic Assembly of North America to use the Internet on behalf of terrorism. Now, the government can use evidence tied to the group or its leaders instead of making direct links between the student and the Websites in question…
Some school districts in central Texas plan to make graduation exercises available on the Internet so parents stationed at Fort Hood but deployed to Iraq can still watch, and one deployed parent is said to have been set up with a private online videoconference to talk to his graduating child. Reports indicate 250 graduates-to-be have agreed to participate in similar videoconferencing…
VeriSign has to re-file their antitrust case against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers by June 7, after a federal judge said VeriSign had been "awfully vague" trying to substantiate accusations that ICANN conspired to keep VeriSign from expanding business, over ICANN's move to back VeriSign off its controversial SiteFinder service. VeriSign claimed the service was to aid surfers who'd misspelled URLs, but ICANN and others claimed VeriSign was trying to disrupt traffic. VeriSign said they would file an amended complaint with more specificity. ICANN said that was "the best possible result" they could have gotten from the May 18 hearing…
Hewlett-Packard seems to think the best thing they can do with a good second-quarter showing is impose what one reporter calls a no-gloating zone. "To a tee, Hewlett-Packard followed the script yesterday," wrote the Washington Post's Cynthia Webb, "that any good technology firm should use when announcing strong quarterly earnings – downplay the good news and stress the many, many challenges still to be faced." HP showed a 34 percent profit hike, but chief executive Carly Fiorina cautioned that corporate clients aren't ready to plunge into spending millions on computer upgrades just yet…
If HP wants to ride the local for now, railroad passengers in India will soon be surfing the Web on the express – the Delhi-Bhopal Shatabdi Express, that is, with the Indian Railways train getting ready to feature Net connectivity on a regular basis following a successful trial period. They'll introduce the service on the Bhopal train and follow with all Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Jan Satabdis, long-distance mail, and express trains, the railroad announced May 19…
A New Zealand doctor may be taking the express to the gaol, now that he's pleaded guilty to six charges in a case involving his preying on young girls he met on the Net. Dr. Matthew James Boyd committed his deeds between 2001 and 2002, in one instance reportedly sending one 15-year-old girl a video of himself masturbating. He has not practiced medicine since his indictment in 2002, even though none of his victims were among his patients, and he's due for sentencing July 2…
Online dating, however, isn't just for such vermin as that. As a matter of fact, and you may have heard this before, it seems like the old folks at home are taking it up pretty strongly these days. Nielsen/NetRatings says over a million Americans 65 and older are finding dates in the digital world. In fact, Match.com, the online dating kings, say their 2003 registrations by single seniors looking for dates and perhaps a little more jumped 122 percent. Not that everything is entirely perfect, you understand. One woman agreed to meet one suitor she met on a message board – and it turned out to be her former husband.
