While the major labels and other indie labels are considering the use of copy-protected CDs in order to prevent disc contents being quickly ripped and posted on P2P networks, !K7 has rejected the idea.

"Copy protection kills customer relationships," the label says on its website. "That's why, from now on, !K7 releases will carry a new logo: 'NO copy protection - respect the music."

The company believes it's all a matter of trust. "Only those to whom respect is given show respect themselves," it notes. In other words, treat your customers as potential pirates and they'll soon tell you to f**k off and not buy your product.

Such an outcome certainly appears to have prompted labels who once touted copy-protection technology to drop it. In September, for example, Sony Music Entertainment and fellow Japanese label Avex both announced plans to stop using CD lock-down mechanisms.

!K7's approach is founded upon the principle that P2P downloads don't in fact represent lost sales - they're casual listeners who probably wouldn't by its CDs in any case.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharers in the UK could soon face legal action from the recording industry.

The Recording Industry Association of America has sued around 5,400 people over the past year, fining them on average $3,000 a piece in an effort to discourage the online swapping of music, which it claims has damaged CD sales.

"We have been quite satisfied with [our] awareness campaign, and use of P2P networks has gone down as people are more aware. But there is still a problem [with illegal file sharing] in the UK," said a BPI spokesman.

"We have seen that litigation has had a practical effect in the US and Europe, and it seems that for some people it is the only way to deter them."

The BPI did not say how it would obtain the names of the P2P users, or what kind of fines it would ask the courts to impose.

AN adult sex toy shut down a key regional airport for almost an hour today when it was mistaken for a bomb, Queensland police said.

The vibrating object was discovered at Mackay Airport by a security officer who noticed the suspicious package inside a rubbish bin at the terminal cafeteria at 9.15am (AEST), a police spokeswoman said.

Cafeteria manager Lynne Bryant said her staff had been cleaning tables when they noticed a strange humming noise coming from the rubbish bin.

Ms Bryant said at the time of the upheaval the airport had been quite busy with two main flights due in and out of the airport - wreaking havoc with people's schedules.

She said in retrospect the humming sounded exactly like a vibrator - but it was better to be safe then sorry.

It's official. All iPod users are music thieves - according to Microsoft CEO Steve 'Monkey Boy' Ballmer.

He singles out the Mac maker for attention because - wait for it - "we've had DRM in Windows for years". The implication is that DRM hasn't been in the Mac OS for a similar duration, and that's what's allowed all those stolen tracks to seep through onto the web.

Windows has, of course, also had Napster, Grokster, Streamcast, Aimster, Kazaa full and lite, et al for years, but - again - none of that Windows-only music theft apparatus has registered on Mr Ballmer's radar screen, it seems.

No, there's no music piracy on Windows, and that's because Windows has had DRM for so long. People haven't been ripping CDs. They haven't been sharing the songs using Windows-based P2P software. And other folk haven't been downloading and transferring them to portable players. Clearly, all those shared tracks have just popped out of nowhere.

Then again, Microsoft has been promising to offer easier to use DRM since at least 2002, as its then Windows Media Player wish list revealed. Yes, that's right WMP users want what MS wants, ie. DRM and more of it, please.

Instant messaging is everywhere nowadays, but people who use it may be surprised to know how trivial it is to listen in on their private conversations. Snoopers can use tools like tcpdump and aimsniff to tap into the contents of the messages. But with a little free software, IMers can be secure in the knowledge their conversations are, well, secure.

Gaim-Encryption is a Gaim plug-in that enables secure conversations over existing IM networks, and, like Gaim itself, Gaim-Encryption is available for most platforms. GNU/Linux users have a number of options, including non-official Debian sources, an RPM, or a tarball. Windows users can download the executable and install it normally.

Every time you IM someone the first IM will be in clear text. Alternatively, you can tell Gaim-Encryption to always encrypt to a given user by selecting his name from your Buddy List and right-clicking on the preference saying "Turn auto-encrypt on."

Think this hurricane season was bad? Well according to the New York Times, a study was published online on Tuesday by The Journal of Climate indicating that warming ocean temperatures are going to make for stronger, wetter hurricanes in the coming years and decades. An abstract of the article concludes cheerfully enough that 'greenhouse gas-induced warming may lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms.' Oh joy.

As if Diebold didn't have enough problems already, they've now lost a case to a bunch of students who were posting copies of the internal documents revealing that the company knew about the various security problems in their systems. Diebold responded not be dealing with the problems, but by going after the students under the DMCA, claiming that the documents were copyrighted material. Of course, amusingly, by doing so they provided proof that the documents were real and that Diebold did really know about the security problems, but just chose not to fix them. The EFF eventually sued Diebold to get them to stop sending out these bogus DMCA takedown notices -- and the judge seems to have agreed this was a violation, ruling clearly: "no reasonable copyright holder could have believed that portions of the e-mail archive discussing possible technical problems with Diebold's voting machines were protected by copyright." He also pointed out that Diebold, "knowingly materially misrepresented" the situation concerning those who posted the documents. Apparently, this is the first time a company has been found guilty of sending out bogus takedown notices, but sets a good precedent for others to fight back as well.

And you thought Google's 1-GByte Gmail was big: Hellacious Riders, an online motorcycle magazine, announced that it launched a 100-GByte Email service to its users. The firm extended its offer with a challenge to THG readers for a 1000 GByte account.

Google claims in its promotion of Gmail that users never will have to delete emails again, due to the pure dimension of its service. Hriders.com, based in Irvine, California, believes that one Gigabyte simply is not enough and offers what Google presented as a bug to some users in the week after Gmail's launch: A whopping 100 GByte.

Up to today, Weiss has signed up 52 million users in countries - a number which he wants to grow significantly to be recognized as record: "We would like to be included in the Guinness Book of Records for the world's largest mailing list," he said.

If you file swap more than 1000 music files you could be punished by three years in prison under a new law passed in the US.

The US House of Representatives has agreed to take the attack of file-sharers carried out by the movie and file industry out of the civil courts and make it a criminal offence.

Now the FBI will pursue those who allow others to copy their music collections through "peer to peer" networks like Kazaa and Morpheus. Agents will now investigate intellectual-property crimes and allow them to send warnings to users they suspect of copying songs illegally. Those found to be sharing more than 1,000 copyrighted files could face jail.

A sponsor of the bill said that the Internet has revolutionised how Americans locate information, shop and communicate, but it must not become a haven for criminals.

This could possibly be the worst viruses yet! Earlier this month Microsoft announced a problem in their GDI driver that processes the way JPEG images are displayed. Someone has finally posted an exploit to Usenet. Easynews, a premium Usenet provider, found the virus Sunday afternoon. Up-to-date information about how we found it and what it does is located at www.easynews.com/virus.txt. When this picture is viewed it installs remote management software (winvnc and radmin) and will connect to irc.