GeneDupe's business is biotech pets. Not for Dr Fril, though, the mundane cloning of dead moggies and pooches. He plans a range of entirely new animals—or, rather, of really quite old animals, with the twist that even when they did exist, it was only in the imagination.

Biology and computing have a lot in common, since both are about processing information—in one case electronic; in the other, biochemical. Virtual cell biology aspires to make a software model of a cell that is accurate in every biochemical detail. That is possible because all animal cells use the same parts list—mitochondria for energy processing, the endoplasmic reticulum for making proteins, Golgi body for protein assembly, and so on.

Because this "growth" is going on in a computer, it happens fast. Passing from egg to adult in one of GeneDupe's enormous Mythmaker computers takes less than a minute.

Using this rapid evolutionary process, GeneDupe's scientists have arrived at genomes for a range of mythological creatures—in a computer, at least. The next stage, on which they are just embarking, is to do it for real.

This involves synthesising, with actual DNA, the genetic material that the computer models predict will produce the mythical creatures. The synthetic DNA is then inserted into a cell that has had its natural nucleus removed. The result, Dr Fril and his commercial backers hope, will be a real live dragon, unicorn or what have you.

In a bid to prop up its failed Child Online Protection Act, the US Department of Justice has ordered 34 Internet service providers, search companies, and security software firms to hand over information on its customers' search habits.

The DoJ wants customer search information from AT&T, Comcast Cable, Cox Communications, EarthLink, LookSmart, Symantec, and Verizon. Apparently some have said no and the DoJ is taking them to court too.

The DoJ seems particularly interested in the search engine LookSmart, this is because the outfit runs an Internet content filtering software company called Net Nanny.

One of the reasons that the DoJ wants the data is to prove that such companies are not effective in blocking child access to sites that contain porn or paedophiles.

It was just two days ago that we wrote about the actions of Diebold and other electronic voting machine companies in Florida, where they're effectively boycotting an elections official who had the gall to have their machines tested in a way that shows they have serious security issues. That article noted that Diebold was negotiating to sell new machines to the county, but only on the condition that the elections officials not run more security tests -- other than "authorized" security tests (because, of course, those with malicious intent would only hack the machines in an "authorized" way).

Phil Windley has the disturbing story, which has many similarities to the Florida story. The county ordered a bunch of Diebold machines and noticed a bunch of problems with the machines as they unpacked them. So, sensing a problem that should be investigated, the official had a couple machines security tested -- which turned up all sorts of additional security issues. Diebold's response? They told the county that the tests broke the warranty on the machines and demanded $40,000 to "recertify" the machines.

A novel site that offers free legal movie downloads was launched Tuesday by a Hong Kong broadband provider.

Hong Kong Broadband Network Ltd. will make five movies available free of charge to users in the city regardless of their Internet service provider.

The only restriction on the service is an 18-minute download time, which the company said in a news release was easily obtainable by Ethernet with a symmetric upload-download speed of 100 megabits per second. Legacy DSL users can only hit about 640 kilobits per second, a speed that would require 15 hours to accommodate a feature film.

HKBN said its Metro Ethernet service was being expanded to nearly 2 million homes, or about 80 percent of Hong Kong's total population.

MPAA owners Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney are in essence trying to outlaw the dot torrent file format, says a lawyer representing TorrentSpy.com, one of the sites named in the MPAA's panicky onslaught against file sharers in particular, and the p2p community in general.´

"Apparently, Hollywood is now using the Grokster opinion to sue search engines that do not even link to their copyrighted files," Ira Rothken tells p2pnet.

It will among other things argue it doesn't not link to copyrighted works; that it's cooperated by removing "objectionable links to dot torrent files;" that it doesn't actively promote copyright infringment,; and, it can't be held "tertiary" liable for visitors' conduct that occurs away from its web search engine, says Rothken.

Millions of geeks were forced away from their machines over the weekend as their virtual World of Warcraft came crashing around their ears.

There is some confusion as to whether the problems that WoW players faced over the weekend was "routine maintenance" as was claimed by Blizzard Entertainment, which runs the game, or a denial of service attack.

The first reference to an outage was when 'Epifanio', Senior Game Master, told the forums that Blizzard's ISP, which is AT&T, was having some 'significant complications'. As a result the playability on a large portion of realms has been adversely affected, Epifanio said.

It would not be the first time a MMORPG game has been walloped with a DoS attack. Final Fantasy XI has also been hit before.

Microsoft appears to be in a state of panic, ordering 60 per cent of its new operating system to be re-written amidst a major shake-up of its troubled Windows division.

The news follows another delay with reports of a staff revolt over the way that management has handled the development of the operating system.

According to a Volish denizen speaking to smarthouse.com, orders have come down from on high to rewrite more than 60 per cent of the consumer version of Vista in a bid to get it ready for the 2007 CES show in Las Vegas.

At the centre of the problem appears to be the Media Centre code which will not be optional. Apparently they cannot get it to work properly in its current format and will have to make a lot of changes to the code to jack it in.

The heartland turned vicious this week when an Oklahoma town threatened to call in the FBI because its web site was hacked by Linux maker Cent OS. Problem is CentOS didn't hack Tuttle's web site at all. The city's hosting provider had simply botched a web server.

This tale kicked off yesterday when Tuttle's city manager Jerry Taylor fired off an angry message to the CentOS staff. Taylor had popped onto the city's web site and found the standard Apache server configuration boilerplate that appears with a new web server installation. Taylor seemed to confuse this with a potential hack attack on the bustling town's IT infrastructure.

"Who gave you permission to invade my website and block me and anyone else from accessing it???," Taylor wrote to CentOS. "Please remove your software immediately before I report it to government officials!! I am the City Manager of Tuttle, Oklahoma."

"Get this web site off my home page!!!!! It is blocking access to my website!!!!~!," Taylor responded, clearly excited about the situation and sensing that Bin Laden was near.

"I am computer literate! I have 22 years in computer systems engineering and operation. Now, can you tell me how to remove 'your software' that you acknowledge you provided free of charge? I consider this 'hacking.'"

Skype users in China will have to wait until 2008 to make phone calls from their PCs to landlines under new rules from the Chinese government. Wang Leilei, CEO of Chinese Internet group Tom Online, said that his government "is not going to issue VoIP licenses until 2008," and even then, nothing is assured.

Due to its popularity, Skype is a special target of the government's ire. Though the Chinese version of the software offered through Tom Online does not include SkypeOut (the name for Skype's PC-to-landline service), users can easily download the full software directly from Skype's website and use it to make international calls that are far cheaper than those available from China Telecom. China Telecom, a state owned firm, has apparently had enough of its upstart competition and managed to block most Skype calls last year. With VoIP apparently under central control, the government seems intent on taking its time in allowing the new technology into the Chinese market.

A Web company that offered free iPods, video games and condoms to qualified registrants now faces a lawsuit alleging it sold millions of user e-mail addresses that it had vowed to keep private.

The suit, filed in the state's supreme court in Manhattan, marks the latest chapter in Spitzer's charge against what he has labeled the largest deliberate breaches of privacy in Internet history. Earlier this month, the attorney general announced a $1.1 million settlement with Datran Media. The e-mail marketer had been accused of buying at least 6 million files from Gratis, despite knowing that the transaction ran contrary to the seller's privacy policy.

In Thursday's filing, the state claims that Gratis violated its own privacy policies by collecting and selling personal information on more than 7 million users, over a period of three and a half years. Gratis sold the information to three independent e-mail marketers, including Datran, in 2004 and 2005, according to the suit. Those marketers went on to fire off tens of millions of unsolicited e-mails to the addresses obtained, the complaint alleged.