The reality is that it may actually make the problem worse. It turns out that these efforts to make it harder to access child porn have serious unintended consequences: basically, those involved with child porn still have plenty of ways to access it, but it's much more underground than before. It makes it that much harder for law enforcement officials to track down those actually responsible and to stop child porn at its source.

What Cuomo has done is make it harder to stop child pornography while also opening the door to others censoring the internet.

Flexplay DVDs have been around for about five years, though on a more limited scale. The premise remains unchanged: Flexplay's patented disc adhesive reacts to oxygen when the DVD's package is opened, beginning a slow chemical reaction that renders the disc unreadable in 48 hours.

Staples will start carrying Flexplay DVDs this month, for $4.99 each.

There is so little security in fax signatures that it's mind-boggling that anyone accepts them.

I've signed book contracts, credit card authorizations, nondisclosure agreements and all sorts of financial documents -- all by fax. I even have a scanned file of my signature on my computer, so I can virtually cut and paste it into documents and fax them directly from my computer without ever having to print them out.

TJX Companies, the mammoth US retailer whose substandard security led to the world's biggest credit card heist, has fired an employee after he left posts in an online forum that made disturbing claims about security practices at the store where he worked.

Security was so lax at the TJ Maxx outlet located in Lawrence, Kansas, that employees were able to log onto company servers using blank passwords, the fired employee, Nick Benson, told The Register. This policy was in effect as recently as May 8, more than 18 months after company officials learned a massive network breach had leaked the details of more than 94 million customer credit cards.

That pesky obesity thing. First it forced Disneyland to increase the sizes of its theme-park costumes, and hospitals to buy larger hoists and beds. Now, in a letter published Friday in the medical journal Lancet, two scientists write that obese people are disproportionately responsible for high food prices and greenhouse gas emissions because they consume 18% more food energy due to their greater body mass -- and require increased quantities of fuel to transport themselves and the food they eat.

Pretty soon, cops won't just be packing stun guns. They'll be carrying electrically-charged riot shields, zapping their unruly without unholstering their weapons.

Taser is demoing all kinds of gear this week -- from shock-inducing shotgun rounds to "area denial" zappers that can fry groups of people at once.

The peel-and-stick zapping film will be available towards the end of the year, the company says.

An RIAA representative claimed not only was DRM not dead, but that it was making a comeback.

RIAA technology guy David Hughes made this statement:

"I made a list of the 22 ways to sell music, and 20 of them still require DRM."

Well, David, I just made a list of 22 ways to sell transportation mechanisms, and 20 of them still require a buggy whip.

Then, even worse was the statement from the MPAA's Fritz Attaway:

"We need DRM to show our customers the limits of the license they have entered into with us."

The second you focus on how to limit your customers, you've lost them. No one wants to be limited these days.

To decry the upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto IV, Jack Thompson sent a message to the mother of Take-Two Chairman Strauss Zelnick.

The email is provocative, to say the least. Not only does it say Mr. Zelnick is "like the Hitler Youth," it also attributes the deaths of three Alabama policemen and "a recent plethora of cop killings" to prior entries in the GTA series.

Now that US customs agents have unfettered access to laptops and other electronic devices at borders, a coalition of travel groups, civil liberties advocates and technologists is calling on Congress to rein in the Department of Homeland Security's search and seizure practices.

The EFF agrees that laptops, cell phones, digital cameras and other gizmos should be cleaned of any sensitive information. Then, after passing through customs, travelers can download the data they need, work on it, transmit it back and then digitally destroy the files before returning.

The post also urges the use of strong encryption to scramble sensitive data, although it warns this approach is by no means perfect. For one thing, CBP agents are free to deny entry to travelers who refuse to divulge their passwords. They may also be able to seize the laptop.

A question that, remarkably, is still being debated after a few thousand years: is mathematics discovered, or is it invented? Those who answer "discovered" are the intellectual descendants of Plato.

The European Mathematical Society recently devoted space to the debate.