Windows Vista can be run for at least a year without being activated, a serious end-run around one of Microsoft's key anti-piracy measures, Windows expert Brian Livingston said today. Livingston, who publishes the Windows Secrets newsletter, said that a single change to Vista's registry lets users put off the operating system's product activation requirement an additional eight times beyond the three disclosed last month. With more research, said Livingston, it may even be possible to find a way to postpone activation indefinitely.

A government study last year showed about 1 percent of Web sites are dedicated to it, but more and more employees -- and children -- are stumbling across it, and looking for it.

The resolution states that current filtering technologies cannot do enough to stop access to porn, as some employees and children actively seek ways to bypass filters on their computers.

Instead, lawmakers have suggested that Congress work to change the nature of the Internet and allow for an "adult content channel" and a "family content channel", which would separate out the different types of content and allow filtering at its source.

"There is this assumption that you can't control it (the Internet)," Yarro said. "It's a toaster, we made it, we can fix it. ... We can solve the Internet pornography problem tomorrow if we decided to."

A Texas-based software company is offering a free tool allowing web users to check the likelihood of a particular name being flagged up by US government's Transportation Safety Administration (TSA), the body which operates the infamous "No Fly" list.

Engineers at S3 Matching Technologies have put together their own Soundex-based engine and loaded in "a compilation of the best available data regarding suspected and known terrorists. Publicly available terrorist names from various reliable government and non-governmental sources were merged to create a comprehensive list." They claim that their website list is constantly updated, just like the TSA's. Users can put in any name they like. If both first and last names throw up a red terrorist-related connection, S3 reckon there's a sporting chance that an individual with that name will be on the TSA's Watch List.

El Reg has naturally tested a few obvious names on the site. Ones which throw up a both-names indication of terrorist links include "George Bush", "Tony Blair," and interestingly, "Gordon Brown", Britain's chancellor of the exchequer. Names which seem to be in the clear include "Oliver North" and "Hugo Chavez".

Anti-Shivaji forums or anti-Ambedkar postings or "hate India" campaigns on Google's social networking site, Orkut, have been confounding our authorities for quite sometime now. Other than blocking the objectionable forums, the Mumbai Police could do little—except wait for the next one to pop up on the web, say, a "fan club" of wanted underworld dons like Dawood Ibrahim or Chhota Shakeel.

Following a meeting between representatives of the site and the Enforcement Directorate last month, the Mumbai Police and Orkut have entered into an agreement to seal such cooperation in matters of objectionable material on the web.

"Early February, I met three representatives from Orkut.com, including a top official from the US. The other two were from Bangalore. We reached a working agreement whereby Orkut has agreed to provide us details of the ip address from which an objectionable message or blog has been posted on the site and the Internet service provider involved," said DCP Enforcement, Sanjay Mohite.

The MPAA is very active in recruiting America's youth for their war on piracy. The deadline for the their anti-piracy propaganda contest just passed. SIFE Students from all over America spent weeks filming mind numbing anti-piracy PSAs, resulting in some really bad, but hilarious clips.

Piracy is the greatest obstacle the film industry currently faces, according to MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman. "We remain committed to educating students, parents and all consumers to aggressively tackle the threat of piracy," he said.

Some of the PSAs created by these students are indeed aggressive and horrific instead of educational.

Analysts over at the German web site Heise Online have uncovered a curious behavior with the latest Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) update.

According to tests conducted with an Ethernet sniffer program, if the user clicks the close button to cancel the installation of this WGA update, Windows sends some information back to Microsoft over the wires.

This information includes version numbers of both Windows and WGA, the language of the operating system, some registry information, and a cookie. Some hackers are worried that Microsoft is going to use this information to identify potential pirates, but Microsoft claims that the data is only used to try and diagnose failures with the WGA utility itself.

The outgoing data can be blocked, if desired, by personal firewall software or hardware router.

According to the Hartford Courant, Connecticut became the latest state to want to restrict the use of MySpace and other social networking sites. The proposed bill would require that all such sites verify the identity and age of users, as well as get parent's permission for those under 18. Sites that failed to comply would be subject to a $5,000 per day fine. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said of the proposition, 'If we can put a man on the moon, we can verify age on the Internet,' but quickly followed with the acknowledgment that there is no foolproof method.

The FBI has been illegally obtaining information on the US public, a report by the justice department's inspector general has said.

The FBI used the Patriot Act, passed after the 11 September 2001 attacks, to compel the release of information illegally or improperly, it said.

The 126-page report by inspector general Glenn Fine said in some cases agents had failed to get the proper authorisation to obtain personal data.

The report said national security letter requests had risen from 39,000 in 2003 to about 56,000 in 2004 before falling back to about 47,000 in 2005.

In a review of field office files, the report found that 22% of the cases it investigated contained one or more possible unreported or unidentified violations.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales praised the report and said he had told FBI director Robert Mueller past mistakes would "not be tolerated".

The software firm famous for its proprietary file formats said it wants its HD Photo file format to be a standard for digital photography.

Microsoft got its best spinning machine out of the cupboard to explain what HD Photo is: "This new, next-generation digital image format offers the best solution for digital image editing and storage and unlocks the potential for digital photography on devices, applications and services."

The Vole claims HD Photo is twice as efficient as JPEG at compression and has less "damaging artefacts".

The new technology has been given an acronym, EPIC, for Electromagnetic Personnel Interdiction Control. The idea is that intense radio-frequency emissions - capable of passing through walls - would be used to temporarily disrupt the balance and coordination functions of targets' inner ears, knocking them down relatively harmlessly.

The Navy notes that "second order effects would be extreme motion sickness," suggesting that in fact the order given by future Captain Kirks may be "set phasers on 'puke'".

The intention of the programme is to avoid unnecessary harm to the target, but unconscious vomiting would seem to present something of a choking hazard. Still, EPIC-based regurge blasters would seem less brutal than the microwave-oven cannons already tested, which are designed to disperse crowds by lightly frying their outer skin layers.