Iraq wants a special tag for Websites created in the recovering country, which would have all Iraqi-based and made sites ending in .iq, similar to .au and .uk tags used by Australia and Great Britain. Iraq's chairman of the National Communications and Media Commission petitions the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for the special code tag, saying it would be "an important tangible and symbolic milestone for this nation, as well as the freedom and hopes of the Iraqi people." Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer is said to have endorsed the Iraqi request in April, saying it would tip potential investors that Iraq's rebuilding includes a high-tech future…
Once upon a time, Sun Microsystems pooh-pooh IBM's suggestions that they make Java open source, with Sun challenging IBM to go open-source with DB2 first. That was then, this may be now: SiliconValley.com reported June 4 that Sun may be planning to go open-source with Java after all. The newsletter quoted Sun tech guru Raghavan Srinivas as telling "folks" that Sun will do it, though they haven't worked out how. "At some point," he said, "it will happen. It might be today, tomorrow, or two years down the road." said SiliconValley.com: Without timetable and licensing details, the comments are "too oblique to put much faith in"… but Srinivas being Sun's Java go-to guy might equal him knowing what he's talking about – or, the company's had it with getting slammed by open-source advocates' letters…
Don't be surprised if at least one parent wouldn't mind seeing one Netizen's (insert euphemism for male sexual organ) cut off… because he was fool enough to send a snapshot of it to a middle-school girl over the Internet. The parent found the photo in her 12-year-old daughter's backpack; the girl told authorities she printed the black-and-white snapshot at the Griswold Middle School library, after a man she chatted with on an instant message program sent it to her – with his phone number. But here's the wrinkle: the girl said she and her friends have been using instant messaging at school to hot chat strangers since January, saying she started because her friends were doing it. "And it escalated from there," she was quoted as saying…
And if you think it's enough of a pain to fight sex predators and child porners on the Internet, just try fighting off the growth of urban legends – such as the one holding actor Lee Marvin and Captain Kangaroo creator Robert Keeshan earning Navy Crosses for valor as Marines on Iwo Jima in World War II. Or, that Mister Rogershimself racked up a large number of kills as a Navy Seal in Vietnam. You can get the real skinny on at least two Websites devoted to debunking the urban legends, Snopes.com and BreakTheChain.org. For the record: Marvin earned the Purple Heart in the battle of Saipan, not Iwo Jima; Keeshan enlisted in the Marines when he turned 18 – in June 1945, when World War II was almost over; and, Rogers was too old to have served in the Vietnam War…
But back to the child porn war, we find a former South Carolina police chief cleared of viewing child porn on a New Ellenton city computer. Van McMillan may have been snared when New Ellenton's computer network turned out to have problems with computer popups referencing porn sites, but a three-month probe found no evidence of child porn images on McMillan's computer, compact discs, or diskettes. The problem is, McMillan was forced out of office, placed on paid leave February 6, terminated May 17, and said to have been fired for unprofessional conduct toward town employees and not because of the child porn probe. A New Ellenton police officer was said to have reported finding porn on McMillan's computer in the first place. McMillen had told the town one of his officers had seen porn and reportedly called for new network security measures…
Meanwhile, over 100 people are said to have been arrested or put under questioning in Scotland, following raids around the country aimed at ending child porn. All eight Scottish police forces plus the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency were believed to have taken part in the searches, part of Operation Falcon and said to be based on intelligence information from the U.S…
Let's make it Heatter time to lead to the weekend. There's good news tonight in cyberspace: A Utah soldier stationed in Afghanistan got to watch his daughter graduate from high school this week after all – on the Internet. SFC Steve McKinnon was greeted online from the ceremony: A SPECIAL WELCOME TO SFC STEVE MCKINNON WHO IS JOINING US FROM AFGHANISTAN VIA A DIRECT LINK OVER THE INTERNET TO WITNESS HIS DAUGHTER WHITNEY'S GRADUATION OVER THE INTERNET. WHITNEY PLEASE STAND AND LETS GIVE YOUR DAD A HAND. Said Whitney McKinnon to KSL News: "It means the world to me. That's the one thing I wanted this entire year. He's been gone my whole senior year and that's the one thing I wanted."
