Microsoft took a public file server offline Tuesday after Internet users discovered that the system contained scores of internal Microsoft documents, including a huge customer database with millions of entries.

Microsoft Spills Customer Data

] Authorities say a teenager told them a video game about
] stealing cars inspired an auto theft spree involving
] about 100 vehicles.
]
] Nineteen-year-old Micah Zoerner of Somers, Wisconsin is
] charged with numerous counts of theft, burglary and auto
] theft. He's being held in lieu of a 15-thousand dollar
] cash bond.
]
] Detectives say he told them he'd been inspired by the
] video game "Grand Theft Auto."

I love GTA4.

CNN: Teen says game inspired crime spree

this is elonka's talk on steganography from phreaknic. elonka is a bad ass cypher freak. the slides are well worth 15 minutes of your time. some reasonable thought about the likelyhood that al-q actually used stegaNography in images tO conceal Their plans for 911. jonnyx's goggled face offers clear evidence that universities that have searched for stego on the web and not found it simply have not tried hard enough. the reader is left to ponder the possible.

Rattle: I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for inadvertently distrupting Elonka's panel. There was a little stir when several people realized that I had hijacked the wireless network as I was watching Elonka speak.

Elonka.Com - Steganography

] ACCORDING TO REUTERS, an eight-foot tall condom wafted
] towards Bill Gates this morning as the Vole's chief
] software engineer contined his visit to in India with a
] visit to Hyderabad.
]
] The newswire says the world's richest man managed a smile
] as the oversized rubber obscured his view of the new
] Microsoft software development centre he was visiting.
]
] The comdom is apparently a "tribute" to mark his $100
] million donation to help fight AIDS in the
] sub-continent.

At the time I posted this meme, Google News was pulling up at least 10 articles referring to Gates and this 8ft condom.. Yet not a single one of them had a picture. Please, give me a picture. Its probably not funny, or even amusing.. But you never know.

Bill Gates comes face-to-face with eight-foot condom

] "Urge Your Representative to Co-Sponsor the DMCRA! "

There is a law on your side... You ought to support it.

Electronic Frontier Foundation Action Center

] "If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before
] passage, here is what will happen to you:
]
] Every purchase you make with a credit card, every
] magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription
] you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or
] receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank
] deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you
] attend all these transactions and communications will go into
] what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized
] grand database." "

This is a little more juicy...

You Are a Suspect

] Either you get it, or you don't. If you do, you're
] probably on the floor laughing right now.

Anything that brings together Microsoft hatred and H.P. Lovecraft is ok with me.

The Old Ones have always been here...they just wear suits now.

] "Word got around the department that I was a good Arabic
] translator who did a great Saddam imitation," recalls the
] Harvard grad student. "Eventually, someone phoned me
] asking if I wanted to help change the course of Iraq
] policy." So twice a week, for $3000 a month, the Iraqi
] student tells the Voice on condition of anonymity, he
] took a taxi from his campus apartment to a Boston-area
] recording studio rented by the Rendon Group, a D.C.-based
] public relations firm with close ties to the U.S.
] government. His job: Translate and dub spoofed Saddam
] Hussein speeches and tongue-in-cheek newscasts for
] broadcast throughout Iraq.

Another article about the antics of the PR agencies Rendon Group and Hill & Knowlton.

The Village Voice: Broadcast Ruse

] Some 2,500 university students rallied in Tehran again on
] Wednesday in what has become the largest show of
] political protest in the Islamic Republic for more than
] three years.
]
] The demonstrations come at a critical time for Iran with
] pro-reform President Mohammad Khatami engaged in a
] last-ditch legal effort to break the grip on power of
] hard-liners entrenched in the judiciary and unelected
] state bodies.
]
] The protests, which have mushroomed in size and intensity
] since Saturday, began in reaction to a hard-line court's
] verdict last week that reformist history teacher Hashem
] Aghajari be hanged for blasphemy after he questioned
] clerical rule in Iran.
]
] "If, using the excuse of Islamic laws, you are going to
] hang someone for his opinions, then we don't want that
] kind of Islam," said Mohammad Namnabat, one of the rally
] organizers. "Our protests will not finish with Aghajari's
] freedom."

Reuters: Students in Iran protest over history professor's death sentence

] "One of the greatest arcade games of all time is
] reinvented for the next generation in videogame systems."

Very good to see Dragon's Lair is still alive and kicking.

There have been DVD versions of the origional two Dragon's Lair games available for some time now. You can play them with your DVD remote control. Those games were nearly impossible to get far in without dispensing many quaters back in the day. Failure in the origional games was almost more fun then sucess. The death scenes were all great.

Dragon's Lair 3D