Surfing the Net chats playing gay, then threatening to expose one man's sexual orientation to his wife and family, got Brett T. Wohl not the $5,000 he demanded, but prosecution – federal investigators say the Chicago man's been charged with extortion. And Wohl isn't exactly a stranger to the crime: He pleaded guilty to a similar scam in October 2002, the difference being the threat involved the intended victim's work colleagues and the booty demanded was a mere $3,700…
An Orange County (Florida) Fire Department information systems administrator had other mischief in mind: Police say he used a small Webcam to spy on a female co-worker, provoking him to resign his job. Hector Ray Valle apparently installed the camera under her desk and she spotted it – pointed to focus right up her skirt – when bending down after bumping her leg. This during the same week as the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill to ban videocam and other miniaturized electronic peeping…
Speaking of which, the co-author of the original Senate bill, Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), is now minus one entry-level staff assistant – who was fired after an Internet journal of her sexual exploits was made public earlier in the week. It probably didn't help that she had used her office computer for some of the entries. She claimed on the now-defunct journal that she was paid for having sex with a married man she said was the chief of staff at a federal agency. "Most of my living expenses," she was quoted as writing, "are thankfully subsidized by a few generous older gentlemen. I'm sure I am not the only one who makes money on the side this way: How can anybody live on $25K a year?"…
"How can anybody get in if too many want to get in?" asked the Missouri Highway Patrol, figuratively speaking, about their Website's listing of registered sex offenders. It was one thing for the patrolmen to expect a pile of inquiries, but they didn't exactly expect so many that the site would crash. "It's jammed up now from the number of hits we are getting today," spokesman Lt. Timothy Hull said May 19. "Once those inquiries slow down, it should function properly." The site is reportedly returning to normal, but the volume of hits is said to be keeping it slow going...
And, speaking further of Internet sex offenders, we present a former Pelham Middle School teacher and Woodlands High wrestling coach who will likely be going to four weekends in the cage and five years' probation after pleading guilty to an Internet sex crime. Spencer Davis (no relation to the British R and B legend) admitted he tried disseminating indecent images to a person he thought was a teen until he arranged a meeting with what turned out to be an undercover officer. He'll be sentenced in August…
For another kind of cyberoffense, consider the American Civil Liberties Union's alarm over those who run the multi-state Matrix law enforcement database – the company running it is said to have given the feds about 120,000 names on a list who "scored high on a computer profile it said was designed to identify likely terrorists," as the ACLU sees it, and the civil liberties group wants a federal investigation into the matter. The ACLU fears that Seisint's "High Terrorism Factor" list, which the company may have created entirely on its own, led to scores of arrests involving people who weren't exactly terrorists…
Meanwhile, back in the cyberjungle, the Free Software Foundation has no intention of helping the SCO Group in its legal battle against Linux, the FSF refusing to turn over documents and communications with key open-source proponents, as SCO wanted in a subpoena in the company's litigation against IBM. "I'm not going to permit a fishing expedition at the Free Software Foundation from a party that has shown a great deal of hostility to the Free Software Foundation and its community," general counsel Eben Moglen said May 20. "We will not produce material that is the subject of attorney-client privilege, and I don't think anybody expects us to."…
Whatever your operating system of choice, look for a big computer replacement boom coming over the next two years, says data research firm Gartner, which said this week that the number of replacement machines in 2004 and 2005 is liable to be far more than those replaced in 1998 and 1999. Gartner thinks we're talking global shipments of 186.4 million new machines, a 13.6 percent hike over 2003. "Our first-quarter results suggest the... replacement cycle that vendors have been anticipating for more than a year is under way," Gartnet analyst for client platforms George Shiffler said in a statement.
