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I sure have heard the term "United Nations to take a greater role" line before.

The gathering grew from December's UN World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, where the world's leaders failed to reach consensus on governing the Internet and punted the issue to a task force that is supposed to report to Annan in 2005.

When was the last time world leaders manage to reach a consensus?

It ended Saturday with a closed-door meeting of diplomats.

Transparency of internation politics.

Computer industry officials at the meeting were skeptical of a UN role, but they agreed that some kind of international body could be useful in coordinating language issues, security and getting the Internet into developing countries.

Heard that before

Most believed an international body had no right to regulate the content of Web sites, a concern for countries like China and North Korea

And not the US? Oh wait, they have DMCA

"ICANN has to be more international and it has to be more transparent," said Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, vice chairman of the UN Information and Communication Technologies Task Force.

UN Transparency = Closed Door Meetings

ICANN also chooses who controls the country codes -- like ".us" or ".uk" -- that define each country's piece of real estate in cyberspace.

The rightful code for Britain should be GB. But the British snatched UK, which should have gone to Ukraine.

It has yet to decide the future of Iraq's ".iq".

Bush's War Against IQ ;)

Twomey denies any US government influence in ICANN's work.
"I have never once seen the United States' foreign policy have any impact on this process," he said.

deja vu?

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Maybe the next time the Israeli Army assasinates a palistinian

Fuck you, you anti-Semitic nothing.

Yeah, a society that sends 12 year olds to blow themselves up is A-OK.

Latham's too much like Jeff Kennett for me to vote for him. Besides, he hasn't learnt from Beazley -- he won't win enough votes to get him over the lone by emulating Howard's policies, people would rather vote for the real thing.

I'll be voting for the only opposition voice we have left in this country; it's a shame that they (the Greens) are all a pack of ratbag lefties.

What you are referring to is enforceability of those laws. True, the US may not be able to enforce its laws against those resident in other countries who do not have presence or assets in the USA.

But it means anyone connected with such an operation better not have assets in the US. Or even visit the US.

And, depending on how the law is drafted, perhaps no person in the US (or with assets there) better use such an operation to *send* spam, or face being prosecuted, or other consequences. Vide internet gambling.

So that US laws, alone, could stop (a) American spammers; and (b) anyone in or doing business with America or visiting America or with assets there (NYSE shares, anyone?) from *using* overseas spammers who do not comply with US law.

And for those that are left, the US can just lean on other countries to enact similar laws, either as part of international treaties (GATT and TRIPS, anyone?) or bilateral trade treaties, or just by leaning on them.

Methinks that would do a great deal to cut down on spam...

If you doubt this, see how effectively the US is able to export its copyright laws to other countries. Or Sarbanes-Oxley, as applied to foreign lawyers or accountants. And how it is now doing the same thing with bank secrecy laws (with an emphasis on terrorism; it has done the same previously with respect to evasion of US taxes). There are many relevant links.

It was on the front page of The Age website this afternoon (afternoon Melbourne time, your time may differ :-) ).

Here it is, assuming the link doesn't change by tomorrow ...

However, he is mistaken that "GPL type licence agreements push the liablity to the users." The GPL specifically puts the patent onus on the code contributor.

As far as end-user liability goes, I fail to see the difference between the GPL and the EULAs of closed software. While GPL projects are certainly vulnerable, there have already been significant successful patent infringement claims against closed software that may affect the end-users of that software.

For example, Timeline recently won a patent infringement suit against Microsoft that potentially could require licencing royalties from developers and even end-users of SQL Server.

There is also Eolas' successful suit against Microsoft for Internet Explorer, which Anderer refers to.

BTW, when Anderer says that MSFT has 50 patent lawsuits waiting in the queue, I read that as saying Microsoft will be the defendant in those suits.

seems like Apple have a habit of ignoring things, looks like its going to be an expensive year for Mr Job's unless they think that international laws do not apply to them (much like the current usa administration)

You better believe it can.

The US installed Duvallier. Then they installed Aristide. Twice! Then when he asked for help again, they forcibly removed him and are now supporting the rebels.
Here
Here
Here
Here
Here

Get a clue. Read a newspaper. Turn on the television news. Pull your head out of your ass.

Yes it can.

Yeah, over a 128K space modem, that's a lot!!! :)

My grandparents have a ColecoVision that they play all the time. But being a 30 year old - and generation X - it seems like a lot of us have gaming addictions.

As always - it comes down to doing things in moderation (coffee, sex, cigars, games) just don't be like the gamer in China who died after 20 straight hours online.

Based on the submitter's resume, the ISP he's working for is ihug. And based on a Google search, the buying company is iiNet (confirmed in iiNet's own press release).

Are there any Linux / Unix-based New Zealand ISPs that feel like offering Simon a new job? (Assuming that posting his situation on Slashdot doesn't get him fired first?)

I think that this guy had a prototype G5 Powerbook

** Scientific findings on issues such as climate change, mercury emissions, and reproductive health are being weakened or omitted in government reports and websites.

really? no proof given though, huh?

** Highly qualified scientists have been dismissed from advisory committees on childhood lead poisoning prevention and workplace safety and replaced by less qualified individuals with industry ties. At least two panels dealing with nuclear weapons have been disbanded altogether.

Highly qualified according to whom? UCS?

Specifically, the administration has distorted and suppressed scientific findings at federal agencies that contradict administration policies; undermined the independence of science advisory panels by subjecting panel nominees to political litmus tests that have little or no bearing on their expertise; nominated underqualified individuals, or individuals with industry ties, to advisory panels; and disbanded some science advisory committees altogether.

That's specific? Not a single incident is cited.

Now, you wrote: Remember Galileo? Hundreds of years of attempted suppression, but they never gave up and never let anyone forget until the Church officially apologized.

Sounds eerily like what UCS did to Bjorn Lomborg. Incidentally, Lomborg was "cleared" by the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Industry.

UCS has issued "studies" like this before, and none of them are ever backed up with facts. If you really read the website, you will see that they are an environmental organization, not a group representing the majority view of scientists either worldwide or in the U.S. Nothing against advocates for the environment, but color me skeptical on any organization that tries to misrepresent who they really are. UCS criticizes the Bush administration for ignoring "scientific findings on issues such as climate change...," yet they seem to do their own share of ignoring certain findings on the issue.

The newspapers simply recite a portion of the "about us" section of the website when describing UCS. Here's an alternative description of the organization. Granted, there is some bias in this assessment, but no more than UCS has for the Bush administration (see their objection to the Iraq war...not that their position is right or wrong, but it is no doubt an awful peculiar policy for a group of "objective scientists" to weigh in on).

I know a lot of you hate Bush, and that's fine, but you still have to consider the source of the information.

The cases aren't really the same though. Mandrake (the distro) has traded using symbols etc that could relate to Mandrake the magician and magic generally. While comics and software are two different areas there is (and especially was) a common theme used in the branding of both Mandrakes. Similarly if I were to write a comic where the superhero could clone things I don't think I'd get away with calling the comic "Xerox" as my character would clearly be trading off Xerox's reputation in copying.

A slightly different case in Australia surrounds the Harry Potter name as used on clothing in Australia. Time Warner lost that one in part because the clothing brand name came first and also because people wouldn't percieve there to be a link between the clothing range and the Harry Potter character.

1) Iraq Death Toll
The Age.
And yeah, there are mass graves, lots of them. But do we right a wrong by killing more people? It's easy to win a war, but much harder to win the peace. There's also a very good reason the humanitarian argument for invasion wasn't used before the war. Because it would have directly led to the argument why the US was invading Iraq rather than a dozen other countries with worse human-rights records.

2) We know Iraq had WMD, US supplied them and the UN destroyed them. The question is whether Iraq had a WMD program capable of threatening the US or surrounding countries. These things aren't easy to hide. You require facilities, research papers, scientists, engineers, factories. The fact that these have not been found indicates that Iraq wasn't a threat. After all, Saddam could have ordered the destruction, but with a realistic weapons program, traces of evidence will be left behind. Soil samples tainted, research papers unburnt, people willing to talk for a new life in the US. You can't just dig a hole and hide a weapons program that was supposedly a threat to the world.
Anyway, you can't prove the non-existence of something. There's anthrax in soil, but there's a big difference between having a small sample of anthrax and having a weaponised anthrax along with the weapons systems to target, launch and the personnel to run it.
Anyway, where's your evidence? David Kay seems to disagree with you multiple times.

3) I'm unsure, about this, someone else would have to answer this.

4a) Okay, again, you want me to prove evidence that something doesn't exist. That's impossible. Saddam did provide some evidence of the destruction of some of the weapons, he simply couldn't provide all the evidence. That seems realistic to me, records get lost, misprinted, mislaid, incorrectly filed, not filed at all. Lack of evidence of destruction does not equate to no destruction occuring.

4b) Oh, do you mean "Ansar al-Islam"? A terrorist group situated in non Saddam-controlled Iraq, you know, the northern no-fly zone. With doubts whether there are actually any real links between Saddam and terrorist groups here and here.

5) No, there's ill-will in Australia (and UK and Spain) and our government entered the war even though the majority of public opinion and the parliament opposed the war. Secondly, France and especially Germany has historically been relatively pro-American. France may not be bending over friendly, but they've always been relatively friendly.

1) Iraq Death Toll
The Age.
And yeah, there are mass graves, lots of them. But do we right a wrong by killing more people? It's easy to win a war, but much harder to win the peace. There's also a very good reason the humanitarian argument for invasion wasn't used before the war. Because it would have directly led to the argument why the US was invading Iraq rather than a dozen other countries with worse human-rights records.

2) We know Iraq had WMD, US supplied them and the UN destroyed them. The question is whether Iraq had a WMD program capable of threatening the US or surrounding countries. These things aren't easy to hide. You require facilities, research papers, scientists, engineers, factories. The fact that these have not been found indicates that Iraq wasn't a threat. After all, Saddam could have ordered the destruction, but with a realistic weapons program, traces of evidence will be left behind. Soil samples tainted, research papers unburnt, people willing to talk for a new life in the US. You can't just dig a hole and hide a weapons program that was supposedly a threat to the world.
Anyway, you can't prove the non-existence of something. There's anthrax in soil, but there's a big difference between having a small sample of anthrax and having a weaponised anthrax along with the weapons systems to target, launch and the personnel to run it.
Anyway, where's your evidence? David Kay seems to disagree with you multiple times.

3) I'm unsure, about this, someone else would have to answer this.

4a) Okay, again, you want me to prove evidence that something doesn't exist. That's impossible. Saddam did provide some evidence of the destruction of some of the weapons, he simply couldn't provide all the evidence. That seems realistic to me, records get lost, misprinted, mislaid, incorrectly filed, not filed at all. Lack of evidence of destruction does not equate to no destruction occuring.

4b) Oh, do you mean "Ansar al-Islam"? A terrorist group situated in non Saddam-controlled Iraq, you know, the northern no-fly zone. With doubts whether there are actually any real links between Saddam and terrorist groups here and here.

5) No, there's ill-will in Australia (and UK and Spain) and our government entered the war even though the majority of public opinion and the parliament opposed the war. Secondly, France and especially Germany has historically been relatively pro-American. France may not be bending over friendly, but they've always been relatively friendly.

1) Iraq Death Toll
The Age.
And yeah, there are mass graves, lots of them. But do we right a wrong by killing more people? It's easy to win a war, but much harder to win the peace. There's also a very good reason the humanitarian argument for invasion wasn't used before the war. Because it would have directly led to the argument why the US was invading Iraq rather than a dozen other countries with worse human-rights records.

2) We know Iraq had WMD, US supplied them and the UN destroyed them. The question is whether Iraq had a WMD program capable of threatening the US or surrounding countries. These things aren't easy to hide. You require facilities, research papers, scientists, engineers, factories. The fact that these have not been found indicates that Iraq wasn't a threat. After all, Saddam could have ordered the destruction, but with a realistic weapons program, traces of evidence will be left behind. Soil samples tainted, research papers unburnt, people willing to talk for a new life in the US. You can't just dig a hole and hide a weapons program that was supposedly a threat to the world.
Anyway, you can't prove the non-existence of something. There's anthrax in soil, but there's a big difference between having a small sample of anthrax and having a weaponised anthrax along with the weapons systems to target, launch and the personnel to run it.
Anyway, where's your evidence? David Kay seems to disagree with you multiple times.

3) I'm unsure, about this, someone else would have to answer this.

4a) Okay, again, you want me to prove evidence that something doesn't exist. That's impossible. Saddam did provide some evidence of the destruction of some of the weapons, he simply couldn't provide all the evidence. That seems realistic to me, records get lost, misprinted, mislaid, incorrectly filed, not filed at all. Lack of evidence of destruction does not equate to no destruction occuring.

4b) Oh, do you mean "Ansar al-Islam"? A terrorist group situated in non Saddam-controlled Iraq, you know, the northern no-fly zone. With doubts whether there are actually any real links between Saddam and terrorist groups here and here.

5) No, there's ill-will in Australia (and UK and Spain) and our government entered the war even though the majority of public opinion and the parliament opposed the war. Secondly, France and especially Germany has historically been relatively pro-American. France may not be bending over friendly, but they've always been relatively friendly.

1) Iraq Death Toll
The Age.
And yeah, there are mass graves, lots of them. But do we right a wrong by killing more people? It's easy to win a war, but much harder to win the peace. There's also a very good reason the humanitarian argument for invasion wasn't used before the war. Because it would have directly led to the argument why the US was invading Iraq rather than a dozen other countries with worse human-rights records.

2) We know Iraq had WMD, US supplied them and the UN destroyed them. The question is whether Iraq had a WMD program capable of threatening the US or surrounding countries. These things aren't easy to hide. You require facilities, research papers, scientists, engineers, factories. The fact that these have not been found indicates that Iraq wasn't a threat. After all, Saddam could have ordered the destruction, but with a realistic weapons program, traces of evidence will be left behind. Soil samples tainted, research papers unburnt, people willing to talk for a new life in the US. You can't just dig a hole and hide a weapons program that was supposedly a threat to the world.
Anyway, you can't prove the non-existence of something. There's anthrax in soil, but there's a big difference between having a small sample of anthrax and having a weaponised anthrax along with the weapons systems to target, launch and the personnel to run it.
Anyway, where's your evidence? David Kay seems to disagree with you multiple times.

3) I'm unsure, about this, someone else would have to answer this.

4a) Okay, again, you want me to prove evidence that something doesn't exist. That's impossible. Saddam did provide some evidence of the destruction of some of the weapons, he simply couldn't provide all the evidence. That seems realistic to me, records get lost, misprinted, mislaid, incorrectly filed, not filed at all. Lack of evidence of destruction does not equate to no destruction occuring.

4b) Oh, do you mean "Ansar al-Islam"? A terrorist group situated in non Saddam-controlled Iraq, you know, the northern no-fly zone. With doubts whether there are actually any real links between Saddam and terrorist groups here and here.

5) No, there's ill-will in Australia (and UK and Spain) and our government entered the war even though the majority of public opinion and the parliament opposed the war. Secondly, France and especially Germany has historically been relatively pro-American. France may not be bending over friendly, but they've always been relatively friendly.

1) Iraq Death Toll
The Age.
And yeah, there are mass graves, lots of them. But do we right a wrong by killing more people? It's easy to win a war, but much harder to win the peace. There's also a very good reason the humanitarian argument for invasion wasn't used before the war. Because it would have directly led to the argument why the US was invading Iraq rather than a dozen other countries with worse human-rights records.

2) We know Iraq had WMD, US supplied them and the UN destroyed them. The question is whether Iraq had a WMD program capable of threatening the US or surrounding countries. These things aren't easy to hide. You require facilities, research papers, scientists, engineers, factories. The fact that these have not been found indicates that Iraq wasn't a threat. After all, Saddam could have ordered the destruction, but with a realistic weapons program, traces of evidence will be left behind. Soil samples tainted, research papers unburnt, people willing to talk for a new life in the US. You can't just dig a hole and hide a weapons program that was supposedly a threat to the world.
Anyway, you can't prove the non-existence of something. There's anthrax in soil, but there's a big difference between having a small sample of anthrax and having a weaponised anthrax along with the weapons systems to target, launch and the personnel to run it.
Anyway, where's your evidence? David Kay seems to disagree with you multiple times.

3) I'm unsure, about this, someone else would have to answer this.

4a) Okay, again, you want me to prove evidence that something doesn't exist. That's impossible. Saddam did provide some evidence of the destruction of some of the weapons, he simply couldn't provide all the evidence. That seems realistic to me, records get lost, misprinted, mislaid, incorrectly filed, not filed at all. Lack of evidence of destruction does not equate to no destruction occuring.

4b) Oh, do you mean "Ansar al-Islam"? A terrorist group situated in non Saddam-controlled Iraq, you know, the northern no-fly zone. With doubts whether there are actually any real links between Saddam and terrorist groups here and here.

5) No, there's ill-will in Australia (and UK and Spain) and our government entered the war even though the majority of public opinion and the parliament opposed the war. Secondly, France and especially Germany has historically been relatively pro-American. France may not be bending over friendly, but they've always been relatively friendly.

Flattened ovid cows will pack to a greater density in a barrel.

... This is the SECOND time I have seen an Australian news source report that SCO 'owns the UNIX operating system'... I first saw it on the age website.... Ridiculous! Don't the technology journalists know anything about what's going on with SCO at the moment? If they had said 'SCO, which owns their own unix-like proprietry operating system' it would have been fine.

Yahoo may however be leaving google..

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/15/10738 77971434.html

Meanwhile, there are reports that Yahoo! and Microsoft are preparing next-generation search technologies to beat Google, the world's most popular search engine. Microsoft, according to one report, is working on a "Google killer" and analysing the Web with its own internet spider, a piece of software critical to building search engines.

It may happen sooner than you think. This news is a few weeks old, but Toyota has something similar in the works, to debut in 2005. Unlike Sony and Honda, Toyota is planning mass production, and if a Toyota robot is smart enough to take care of my grandmother, surely it can fetch drinks and go check to see what the hell the dog is barking at.

Here's an article discussing this problem from
The Age

I find this a bit rich coming from a US cit. Currently Australia is trade negotioning with the US. Guess what free trade does not include things like sugar, dairy, beef.

Yes but you die cheaper, quicker, and later when you eat right and exercise regularly. According to this article vegetarians (as an example of healthy eaters) live 4 years longer than non-vegetarians.

By quicker I mean that you are less likely to be sick for a long period of time. Personally I would prefer to die fairly quickly than to hang around with a barely functioning body for a long period of time.

There's much more detail about this here.

Apparently, Tidbinbilla is one of only 3 stations tracking Spirit from Earth. If it's out, they have to wait until Spirit is visible from over the horizon at another station before they can communicate.

The price seems likely, given that Telstra's music service is charging A$1.49 a track.
Unfortunately, they're Windows Media Player files, so that excludes me...
This information was gleaned from an interesting article about it at The Age.

The price seems likely, given that Telstra's music service is charging A$1.49 a track.
Unfortunately, they're Windows Media Player files, so that excludes me...
This information was gleaned from an interesting article about it at The Age.

Modding the self is nothing new, either. People have been getting plastic surgery for years.

However, sometimes they may be more in need of a psychotherapist than a surgeon... Dr. Rosen of the Dartmouth Medical center would be more than happy to literally give you wings.

should be restricted to .com domains. That's what the TLD was supposed to mean. Any other TLD should be first-come, first-served

That's what we do here with .com.au domains. You must have a registered business name that your selected domain name can be derived from. Of course, there were many people who thought that was too restrictive. In particular, the moron who writes for The Age and wanted property.com.au for a side venture of his. He gave Melbourne IT flack at every turn for not giving that domain to him (even though they weren't the ones who put the rules into place). AFAIK we also have similar rules for .org.au domains.

This story was covered in the Australian press a few days ago. Other sources report that the GMA has apologised, describing the acction as a "youthful indescretion".

terrorists you say...

Someone thought of that in Australia (sort of), and developed a game where the user is an illegal immigrant and must escape from a refugee camp. Funded by our Government too, funnily enough.

Escape From Woomera

Rename "Europa" to "Hoth" - an ice planet people HAVE heard of !! It would fit in nicely with Bush' pressure on Australia to join the Star Wars program.

z3ngine.

PS: yes, I realise Europa is a moon and Hoth is a (ficticious) planet.

The various links also point to an order by the judge that it needs to provide, within 30 days, the code from the Linux kernel to which it says it has rights, and also indicate where IBM has infringed. The article is dated December 19, 2003, which means the 30 days is up about 90 minutes after I write this. Anybody know if it's actually happened? I write this. Any A US federal judge in Salt Lake City, Utah, has told the SCO Group that it needs to provide, within 30 days, the code from the Linux kernel to which it says it has rights, and also indicate where IBM has infringed.

http://msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3660508&p 1=0

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/28/10698 25989738.html?from=storyrhs

You can see more of the original news items with this search:

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF- 8&q=sound+crunch+space+station+international&btnG= Google+Search&meta=

Recent Theories such as
<a href="http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/topic/4 421-1.html">VSL suggest that 'c' might not be so constent after all. In a nutshell
<a href="http://web.sunybroome.edu/~stoner_r/ENG220NY TSomeScientistsSuggest.htm">relativity might be relative</a>...

This is a terrific solution however it does seem to invade our right to privacy. Is Peace of mind is worth seeing naked bodies of various proportions?

This wreaks of stepping on our unalienable rights. Why should our God Given rights to privacy be so unalienable? Liberty Essay

Why should we fight for our freedom?
Dred Scott's fought
The advance of freedom is the calling of our time.
Because if we don't fight we will continue lose it. Like the frog in the pot, it will slowly heat up and we will boil in your loss of freedom. Like the Nazi's took away the rights then more rights then until they finally found it convenient to take away the right to live. You would think we would have learned something. But no. We are sheep.

The terrorists caused more harm to us by causing a societal Auto Immune Disease than by their attacks. The lymphatic system of our society over- reacted to the threat to the point where the true threat is fear which for some reason, our society has propagated. The true problem was the sheep.

We need to teach our citizens to defend themselves from terrorists. We should all learn Krav Maga in grade school. But we would rather be sheep. Fat fast food eating, non-exercizing Sheep that watch too much TV.

It starts with fear. Fear is the mind killer. is the mind-killer.
Terrorists work to create fear. These terrorist succeeded in stirring up a lot of fear. Now we have to fly naked.

America used to be the Home of the Brave . We did not have fear. We were the land of the "NoFear bumper stickers"
But now we fear our fellow americans. We fear anybody we don't know who rides on the airplane with us. We fear men in turbans. We are afraid to lose our valuable sheep lives.

This is why we should be able to bear arms. An American with a machete, a machine gun, a nuke, and nifty ice9 nano particals is a Free american afraid of no one. The interesting aspect of this is that if one bears arms he is afraid of something otherwise why carry the extra weight? We should be able to bear arms but we should not because bearing arms shows that we are afraid. What arms we decide to bear is irrelevant.

Q. What are we afraid of?
A. Death, loss of life, loss of loved ones.

Q. Why are we afraid?
A. We are afraid of where we go when we die.
1. heaven? if we are going here,
what are we afraid of? cool gardens streamside with plenty of fruit? Spending eternity with our God?
2. hell? if we are afraid of going to hell we are already in hell.
3. nowhere? Ceasing to exist is like total loss of freedom. We are afraid of losing our freedom. Why give it up without a fight now. Why die the little death?

Sheep.
We are sheep.
We go where they say to go.
When they say submit to the search, we submit.
When they say bend over, we bend over.
When they say no nail clippers, no baby swiss army knife, no pointy things, do we say "We are free!!! We are CITIZENS!!! WE HAVE UNALIENABLE GOD GIVEN CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS TO BEAR ARMS/FINGER NAIL CLIPPERS!!!!!

When they say "fly naked", we will submit.
When they say take this tattoo on our hand or forehead, we will submit.
Why?

Because we are sheep.

When they say we will implant rice chips in all our kiddos when they are born and we will track their GPS coordinates and purchases for their lives, we will submit. We won't just submit, we will want it. We will demand it. Why?
Because we are sheep.

Be brave and be free. Remember the Su

How many times do you hear of a "medical breakthrough" that requires more research but will lead to treatments in, perhaps, 10 years. That 10 year figure gets trotted out a lot.

So what technologies are pursued today and almost certainly doable, and are widely derided or ignored by people who should know better?

Machine phase chemistry (The real stuff - Drexler)
Cryonics
Space Elevator

I ask a simple question asking for hard DATA rather than emotionally-loaded invective, and this is your response. Does it seem reasonable to you?

More reasonable than your ability to trim a response. Why didn't you respond instead to the parts where I outlined the reasons for the problem? Like I said, I get at least 100 spam for every 1 real message. If that's not HARD enough for you, a simple Google search will turn up things like this and this. If you want to collect some data of your own, feel free to post your email address in a reply.

And the answer to your almost-stated question is, "Because I will not hate any group solely because the majority tells me to."

I don't even come close to asking a question that would answer. It all comes down to the very simple fact that many of us have been around, judging by your id, much longer than you and we've seen what happens over time as your contact info spreads and is harvested by spammers. You ignore at your own risk. I'm not asking you to hate anyone, I simply pointing out that spammers have made it impossible to use email as it was intended. That should be fairly easy to understand, unless you happen to be a spammer trying to justify your behavior.

All Bush said was that the major combat was over.

Hmm, imagine the embarrasment this guy must feel, then.

Of course you'd have to have some testicular fortitude to amputate your own arm?! If that's a macho-like turn on, then fine.

The Age has an article titled Doubts cast on SCO claims of denial of service attack. It's good to see a mainstream news service not just reporting the FUD but actually digging a little deeper.

The Age reports that Cisco routers would block the SYN flood attack SCO claims to suffer from (I think there is some discussion of this on groklaw as well). Anyways, the guys at The Age appear to have a clue.

The second link is to the Google cache of the most recent SCO page. It takes forever to load (I wonder why), but examination of the source file reveals (surprise!) a link to Rob Enderle's anti-Linux propaganda from www.technewsworld.com...

I think that the people reading this thread and possessing the necessary technical knowledge should store the evidence contradicting SCO's "explanations" of today's events in the case SCO claims that the information the judge demanded "got lost because of the vile Linux hacker attack."

It seems a little more complicated than that (from here):

Until recently, SSC provided web hosting for the Gazette and allowed some of its (SSC's) staff to assist in production of the Gazette during working hours.

However, all that seems to have changed. SSC is now running a site at linuxgazette.com which it calls Linux Gazette. The people who were running Linux Gazette earlier have moved to a new site at linuxgazette.net - and are running Linux Gazette as well!

According to an explanation posted by SSC, "a group of the Linux Gazette contributors opposed the transition of our site to a Content Management System. While we did our best to address the concerns, some have elected to leave Linux Gazette and start their own publication. We regret their decision but as (most) were volunteers, it certainly is their right.

"Unfortunately, they have so far continued to use our Linux Gazette trademark in conjunction with their new site. Until such time as they stop using that trademark, we have been advised to remove any references to that mis-use (sic) from our site."

According to Rick Moen, contributing editor of Linux Gazette, the decision to move was due to a number of things, "including SSC's unexplained, unannounced, retroactive deletions of prior issues' articles, its stripping of authors' copyright notices and substitution of their own corporate one, and its proclaimed plans to make LG cease being a magazine and cease having editors, turning it into solely a dynamic Web site."

Moen said after the move to new quarters, SSC "to our astonishment produced a November issue purporting to be Linux Gazette, immediately after our November issue went to press. This was surprising because we'd been told they intended that monthly magazine issues would cease."

I just can't WAIT to get hit by someone scrolling through a list of games trying to figure out what to play while they drive!

This sort of metric just seems extremely silly. Is someone putting pressure on BigPond, or is one of their executives being an idiot?

Don't wonder too hard mate, this is Telstra .

Right?