A year ago, a group of spammers anonymously teamed up with a lawyer to sue a bunch of anti-spam groups. After those anti-spam groups fought back, the spammers eventually dropped their case. However, now we've got a similar situation. Scott Richter, the well known spammer behind OptInRealBig, is now suing IronPort, the folks who bought SpamCop last year. He's asking for $1 million in damages, saying that SpamCop has damaged his reputation. Has he given any thought to the idea that sending spam may have damaged his reputation? Among the many charges filed against SpamCop, Richter included Negligent Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage, Unfair Competition and Interference with Contractual Relationship.

Following a recent speech at MIT on Movies in the Digital Age (streaming audio available), MPAA front man Jack Valenti sat down for a revealing interview with The Tech, MIT's student newspaper. In this entertaining read, Keith J. Winstein grills Valenti on fair use and the right to play DVDs under GNU/Linux. My favorite part is when Winstein shows a dumbfounded Valenti a six-line DVD descrambler he's designed, to which Valenti responds with language inappropriate for the Slashdot homepage. Throughout the interview, Valenti demonstrates his ignorance and misunderstanding of fair use.

Undercover investigations into Internet piracy identified more than 100 people in the United States and abroad involved in the theft of more than $50 million worth of music, movies and software, U.S. authorities said Thursday.

More than 120 searches were conducted in a 24-hour period in 27 states and 10 countries in an effort to dismantle organizations known by such names as Fairlight, Kalisto, Echelon, Class, Project X and APC, officials said.

The initiative, known as Operation Fastlink, has resulted in the seizure of more than 200 computers, including 30 that served as storage and distribution hubs containing thousands of copies of pirated material. One server seized in the United States contained 65,000 separate pirated titles, authorities said.

Among the countries in which FBI searches have been conducted are Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden and Great Britain.

The FBI is trying to convince the government to mandate that providers of broadband, Internet telephony, and instant-messaging services build in backdoors for easy wiretapping.

That would constitute a sweeping expansion of police surveillance powers. Instead of asking Congress to approve the request, the FBI (along with the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration) are pressing the Federal Communications Commission to move forward with minimal public input.

A House of Representatives committee report prepared in October 1994 is emphatic, saying CALEA's requirements "do not apply to information services such as electronic-mail services; or online services such as CompuServe, Prodigy, America Online or Mead Data (Central); or to Internet service providers."

Then why is the FBI so emphatic? The bureau's not talking, but it seems to be all about ease of eavesdropping. Sorting through an intercepted stream of data is difficult and means that Carnivore must be updated to unpack the Session Initiation Protocol used to set up VoIP and instant-messaging conversations. Ordering those companies to include a backdoor for police is a lot easier.

A frustrated businessman has blown his top with Microsoft after he claimed that a critical security update for Windows 2000 made his PCs unuseable for weeks.

Randy Hubbard, of Raceware Engineering LLC, claimed that SP4 contained defective software, and after going through a lengthy correspondence with Microsoft technical staff, has concluded that he has no further alternative but to be "lead plaintiffs in a Class Action suit against Microsoft for consumer fraud".

He said Microsoft had asked him if it could do anything else to "make him happy". Hubbard told him to send a cheque for $6,000 to cover some of his company's losses. But the Microsoft representative said he didn't have the authority to do that. "I told him to call Dollar Bill and tell him the situation and have him send us a check. He declined," said Hubbard. "I said 'no problem, we're switching to Linux like every other business, have a nice day'".

Australian magistrates have blocked the extradition of the alleged head of a software piracy syndicate to the US.

Hew Raymond Griffiths, 41, of Berkeley Vale in New South Wales, Australia, was indicted on one count of criminal copyright infringement and one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement by a Virginia grand jury last year. US investigators charge that Griffiths rose trough the ranks to become leader of the infamous DrinkorDie piracy group, which released a pirated copy of Windows 95, days before its official release and has been getting up to similar antics ever since.

But the circumstances of the case failed to persuade Downing Centre Local Court Magistrate Daniel Reiss that Griffiths ought to be extradited.

Griffiths' alleged crimes took place in Australia. Griffiths had never travelled to the US and, what's more, he'd "never been a fugitive fleeing or hiding from the extradition country".

UK businesses should beware of people trying to extract money for renewal of domain names meaning you may end up paying more money than you need to people you don't need to pay.

This morning, the INQUIRER got three letters from a company calling itself EU Registry Services, based in Cambridge, reminding us that we needed to renew theinquirer.net and theinquirer.org.

The letters start off in a scary tone, saying: "The domain name shown above is due for renewal. Please renew this domain immediately to ensure service continues uninterrupted. If payment is not made to the registry before the expiry date the domain is subject to immediate suspension and deletion without further notice".

While there's no web page address for "EU Registry Services", an email address to "help@renewalpayments.com" is supplied. A whois database entry shows this belongs to Dot Biz Domain Renewal, living in a PO Box at 287 Regent Street, London W1.

A far-reaching proposal from the FBI, made public Friday, would require all broadband Internet providers, including cable modem and DSL companies, to rewire their networks to support easy wiretapping by police.

Legal experts said the 85-page filing includes language that could be interpreted as forcing companies to build back doors into everything from instant messaging and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) programs to Microsoft's Xbox Live game service. The introduction of new services that did not support a back door for police would be outlawed, and companies would be given 15 months to make sure that existing services comply.

Because the eavesdropping scheme has the support of the Bush administration, the FCC is expected to take it very seriously. Last month, FCC Chairman Michael Powell stressed that "law enforcement access to IP-enabled communications is essential" and that police must have "access to communications infrastructure they need to protect our nation."

TOKYO- Japanese Internet company Softbank Corp. said Friday its president and six other senior executives would forgo part of their pay to take responsibility for the leakage of personal data for over 4 million of its broadband customers.

"We really don't know how to apologize," said Softbank president Masayoshi Son at a televised news conference. The company, a global investor in Internet businesses, said it is still investigating how the information was leaked.

The information on current and former subscribers - totaling 4.51 million in all - included addresses, names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers. It did not include passwords, credit card information or bank account numbers or transactions made, the company said.

Son will forgo 50 percent of his salary for six months to take responsibility, Softbank said in a statement. Six other senior officials will take similar pay cuts, the company said.

Softbank said it will spend about 4 billion yen ($36.70 million) on gift coupons for all of its customers, among other measures, to make up for the incident. The company has also promised to strengthen its data security.

A record company's attempt to silence a popular remix has raised voices of protest among almost 200 websites, which are posting DJ Danger Mouse's The Grey Album online in defiance of the music industry's copyright control.

According to protesters, the Danger Mouse fiasco is a perfect example of how outdated copyright restrictions stifle creativity. The label's tactics show that "making money is a higher priority in the music industry than making music," said John Langton, a student and musician.

"If you want to be creative you have to be signed to one of the major labels," said DJ Variable, a DJ and a producer from Philadelphia. "They're the only ones who will put up the money for sample clearance."

"It's like a glass ceiling out there for music," DJ Variable said. "If you start your own label and do your own thing, you can make a spark in the underground scene. If you get to be big, then the major labels are either going to sue you or sign you."