Switzerland's police latest annual report on money laundering in the country outlines some of the amazing Internet scams that have managed to fool investors in that country over the past year. Chief among these cases is the 'Nigerian letter' case, during which, despite warnings about the scam, an investor ended up sending about $115,000 to Nigeria over a period of time, where it promptly disappeared.

In the case, a money transmitter, following the country's anti-money laundering procedures, asked a Swiss national why he had transferred about $100,000 to various recipients in Nigeria. The sender explained that he had invested the money into an oil company based in West Africa and that he soon expected high returns. Following a check of the documents provided by the client, the money transmitter told him he was sure he had been the victim of Nigerian swindlers.

Six months later another money transmitter reported the same Swiss national to the money laundering reporting office because he had again transferred another $38.000 to Nigeria.

TURBOLINUX HAS created a media player which incorporates Microsoft code, according to a report in today's Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

The newspaper reports that the media player will be released with a consumer version of Linux in Japan, the USA and China for just under ¥16,000.

The Japanese company will pay royalties to Microsoft for the ability to use the media player code, based on the number of copies of Linux sold, says the paper.

The move could be seen as an attempt by Microsoft to ensure it doesn't get into hot water with further regulatory bodies after its recent skirmish with the European Union.

You may remember that last fall the entertainment industry began a project where they went into schools to teach a "lesson" on why file sharing was bad that included the lesson, "if you didn't pay for it, you stole it." Of course, to hammer this lesson home, the industry gave away for free DVD players and trips to Hollywood to those students who could come up with the best essays to express why anything free must be stolen (sort out the irony for yourself).

The FBI is leaning on the US government in a bid to force through changes to the net that will allow it to snoop on net traffic more easily.

According to Cnet, the Feds, along with the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration are leaning on the FCC, rather than Congress, to approve the plan without too much attention from the public.

The Feds have used data tapping to collar internet based crime and have the controversial Carnivore system, also called DCS1000 to do the job. Apparently the problem is that Carnivore has a devil of a job sorting out all the data it collects.

The result is that the spooks are looking at other ways of getting the data they want and are going back to their old idea of forcing software designers, ISPs and companies to build spook friendly back doors.

aQuantive, one of the Web's largest advertising companies, has quietly formed a new operating unit to profile Web surfers and deliver targeted online ads.

For example, someone repeatedly reading home-improvement material at sites like The New York Times online or About.com might see an ad for Home Depot when they visit a partner site. And because the efforts are narrowly targeted at individuals, Drive PM said it can sell the ad at a higher price.

Howe said Drive PM will avoid privacy pitfalls by keeping consumers' personal information--such as names, phone numbers and addresses--private. "We know about their past behaviors but couldn't call them up on the phone," he said.

Jon Lech Johansen, who reverse engineered FairPlay back in January, and wrote the decryption code that was later used by an anonymous developer to create the playfair utility, has released a similar utility: DeDRMS. It's only 230 lines. T-shirts anyone?

Forgent Networks said Friday it sued 31 major hardware and software vendors, including Dell and Apple Computers, for allegedly infringing on its claim to an algorithm used in the popular JPEG picture file format.

In use since the mid-1980s, the JPEG, or Joint Photographic Experts Group, format has become the de facto standard for sharing photo-quality images electronically. Although the most widely used version of the format is in the public domain, Forgent said it believes that a 17-year-old patent it acquired through the purchase of Compression Labs in 1997 can be applied to a specific algorithm in the format.

Forgent's critics say the new lawsuit is yet another example of how the practice of using patents to generate revenue is endangering the computing industry. It isn't the first time the company has been criticized for trying to enforce the compression patent. In 2002, when Forgent first announced that it would seek JPEG licensing fees, the public outcry led JPEG committee member Richard Clarke to speculate in an interview with The Register that the International Standards Organization would have to withdraw the format altogether.

Undercover investigations into Internet piracy identified more than 100 people in the United States and abroad involved in the theft of more than $50 million worth of music, movies and software, U.S. authorities said Thursday.

More than 120 searches were conducted in a 24-hour period in 27 states and 10 countries in an effort to dismantle organizations known by such names as Fairlight, Kalisto, Echelon, Class, Project X and APC, officials said.

The initiative, known as Operation Fastlink, has resulted in the seizure of more than 200 computers, including 30 that served as storage and distribution hubs containing thousands of copies of pirated material. One server seized in the United States contained 65,000 separate pirated titles, authorities said.

Among the countries in which FBI searches have been conducted are Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden and Great Britain.

The FBI is trying to convince the government to mandate that providers of broadband, Internet telephony, and instant-messaging services build in backdoors for easy wiretapping.

That would constitute a sweeping expansion of police surveillance powers. Instead of asking Congress to approve the request, the FBI (along with the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration) are pressing the Federal Communications Commission to move forward with minimal public input.

A House of Representatives committee report prepared in October 1994 is emphatic, saying CALEA's requirements "do not apply to information services such as electronic-mail services; or online services such as CompuServe, Prodigy, America Online or Mead Data (Central); or to Internet service providers."

Then why is the FBI so emphatic? The bureau's not talking, but it seems to be all about ease of eavesdropping. Sorting through an intercepted stream of data is difficult and means that Carnivore must be updated to unpack the Session Initiation Protocol used to set up VoIP and instant-messaging conversations. Ordering those companies to include a backdoor for police is a lot easier.

Created by software firm Audible Magic, the song-filtering software is backed strongly by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The software has also triggered interest in Washington, D.C., and skepticism in the peer-to-peer world and among some students and universities.

File-swapping companies--some of which have contended that filtering their networks is impractical or even impossible--said they were skeptical of the claims, noting that neither RIAA nor Audible Magic had given them a demonstration of the filtering tools. Industry trade group P2P United says it has repeatedly contacted the company asking to see the filters in action.

Jacobson said the identification process would not work on an encrypted network, such as is used in several newer file-swapping programs. However, the Palisade software could act to block those applications from using the network altogether, instead of blocking individual song transfers, he said.