Fraudsters who deal in stolen credit card data have devised a means to extract money from sponsors of junk mail campaigns.

Carders have signed up as affiliates to spam campaigns, but instead of sending out junk mail themselves they are using stolen credit card data to make purchases from the sponsors of spam campaigns, such as online pharmacies.

The carders earn a cut of these sales of anything between 40 to 50 per cent, the Washington Post's security blog reports, more than enough to make the scam viable.

But the sponsors of spam campaigns end up losing out because of charge backs generated when fraudulent purchases are identified. Higher incidents of charge-backs result in higher merchant fees while drawing the attention of banks and credit cards sponsors to dubious businesses. Far from benefiting from increased sales, spam sponsors end up losing out. In this way, card fraudsters are scamming the backers of spam.

Spam sponsors are complaining about been ripped off, a factor that allowed net security firm CipherTrust to identify the new ruse during the course of its work monitoring online spam and fraud forums.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has just released their annual report on software piracy around the globe. This year, they're claiming US$34 billion in worldwide losses—a claim worth investigating in a bit more detail.

One obvious issue is the fact that the US$34 billion in "losses" isn't actually "losses" at all; it's simply the estimated retail value of the pirated software. It's obvious, however, that not every pirated piece of software would be purchased at the full retail price, making any talk of "losses" suspect. IDC estimates, in fact, that only 1 out of every 10 pieces of pirated software should be counted as an actual loss. US$3 billion in worldwide piracy losses? That doesn't actually sound like a major crisis.

The other glaring problem is methodological. There is obviously no way to actually count the number of pirated pieces of software in existence. So how do come up with US$34 billion in losses? Simple—you estimate. IDC's formula is to take the amount of installed software around the world and then to subtract out the amount that was actually sold, which tells them how much software was pirated. Of course, no one actually knows how much software is installed around the world, so IDC uses another formula to figure it out. They take the worldwide number of hardware shipments and multiply it by the average amount of the installed software. How do they know the average amount of installed software? Through surveys and local analyst research.

A majority of Americans initially support a controversial National Security Agency program to collect information on telephone calls made in the United States in an effort to identify and investigate potential terrorist threats, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The new survey found that 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort. Another 35 percent said the program was unacceptable, which included 24 percent who strongly objected to it.

The dogs, Lucky and Flo, faced their first test at the FedEx UK hub at Stansted Airport. "FedEx was glad to assist in Lucky and Flo's first live test in a working situation. They were amazingly successful at identifying packages containing DVDs, which were opened and checked by HM Customs' representatives. While all were legitimate shipments on the day, our message to anyone thinking about shipping counterfeit DVDs through the FedEx network is simple: you're going to get caught." Kinda makes me thing twice about shipping anything through FedEX. Seriously, this is like training drug dogs to find plastic bags.

The vulnerability, which is still being kept mostly secret, appears to let someone upload new software to the machines with just a few minutes at the machines -- potentially allowing them to change voting results on the machine. This is, clearly, a major issue -- and certainly not the first one found on Diebold machines. In the past, we've seen reports about weak security, putting ballots online and unprotected, a default easy password used on all machines across the country, reports of miscounts on the machines, evidence that Diebold employees purposely hid security problems, claims that Diebold made last minute changes to voting machine software (in violation of election laws), evidence that other machines were easily hacked and a number of other problems with both the machines and people who worked at Diebold (such as the convicted felons who ran the unit that wrote the voting machine software).

In some cases, even when serious issues have been shown, the company has publicly laughed them off and then made life difficult for elections officials who are required by law to buy electronic voting machines, by doing things like making them sign contracts that won't allow these types of security tests. In fact, the whole reason this new serious vulnerability came to light was because of a security test done on the machines for a county elections official in Utah in March. You remember... that was the case where Diebold claimed such tests were a violation of their warranty, and they demanded $40,000 to "recertify" the machines.

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans - most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations.

"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added.

In the case of the NSA's international call-tracking program, Bush signed an executive order allowing the NSA to engage in eavesdropping without a warrant. The president and his representatives have since argued that an executive order was sufficient for the agency to proceed.

The supreme leader of the software giant Microsoft, Sir William Gates III, has complained to a telly reporter that he hates being dubbed the richest man in the world.

He said that generally he hates publicity and does not like the attention that having huge wodges of cash seems to give him.

Gates may be one of the world's biggest philanthropists, but complains he gets more visibility from the cash he has rather than the stuff he gives away.

Warner Home Video has begun trial sales in China of a movie DVD priced at just Rmb12 ($1.50), a move likely to anger consumers in developed markets such as Europe and the US, who typically pay $20-$30 for a recently released film on DVD.

The "simple pack" edition of the Oscar-winning epic, which comes in a cardboard folder rather than the standard DVD plastic box, went on sale earlier this month in selected Chinese cities, said Christine Hu, CAV Warner public relations manager.

Pirate producers have long benefited from loose enforcement of intellectual property laws in China and from state censorship that complicates DVD imports.

Low prices are vital for a mass market used to cut-price pirate discs, but Ms Hu said there had been surprising demand for pricey box sets.

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has hit Symantec Corp. with a $1 billion tax bill for allegedly under-reporting the value of intellectual property that the software vendor transferred to two Irish subsidiaries.

The IRS claims that both Symantec and Veritas Software Corp. under-priced intellectual property the two companies licensed to their Irish subsidiaries, said Symantec spokeswoman Genevieve Haldeman. Both Symantec and Veritas, which was purchased by Symantec in 2005, set up the Irish subsidiaries for the purpose of doing business outside of the U.S., she said.

Blizzard, maker of online fantasy fest World of Warcraft has recently banned 5400 players and suspended 10700 more for cheating in its Online game.

Blizzard says it "banned over 5400 accounts and suspended 10700 more for participating in activities that violate the game's Terms of Use."

Most of the bans come from direct tip off from players who have reported suspicious antics to the WoW informer email address.

Blizzard has said that all reports are investigated and if you grass up someone who turned out to be innocent your online life will not be affected in any way.