A far-reaching proposal from the FBI, made public Friday, would require all broadband Internet providers, including cable modem and DSL companies, to rewire their networks to support easy wiretapping by police.

Legal experts said the 85-page filing includes language that could be interpreted as forcing companies to build back doors into everything from instant messaging and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) programs to Microsoft's Xbox Live game service. The introduction of new services that did not support a back door for police would be outlawed, and companies would be given 15 months to make sure that existing services comply.

Because the eavesdropping scheme has the support of the Bush administration, the FCC is expected to take it very seriously. Last month, FCC Chairman Michael Powell stressed that "law enforcement access to IP-enabled communications is essential" and that police must have "access to communications infrastructure they need to protect our nation."

Software firm Lindows said that it has been threatened with a €100,000 per day fine if people in Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands attempt to access its site.

The request to levy the fine was made to a court by Microsoft.

The CEO of the firm said that as it was impossible to comply with a broad court order blocking visitors from Benelux, and so Lindows has withdrawn its products from these markets.

Microsoft argues that Lindows, a graphical version of the Linux OS, is similar to its own non-Linux Windows, and users might get confused between the one and the other.

A robot for "printing" houses is to be trialled by the construction industry. It takes instructions directly from an architect's computerised drawings and then squirts successive layers of concrete on top of one other to build up vertical walls and domed roofs.

The key to the technology is a computer-guided nozzle that deposits a line of wet concrete, like toothpaste being squeezed onto a table. Two trowels attached to the nozzle then move to shape the deposit. The robot repeats its journey many times to raise the height and builds hollow walls before returning to fill them.

Engineer Behrokh Khoshnevis, at the University of Southern California, has been perfecting his "contour crafter" for more than a year. "The goal is to be able to completely construct a one-story, 2000-square foot home on site, in one day and without using human hands," he says.

Orion, the Big Dipper and Andromeda could be joined in the heavens by ads for soft drinks and cigarettes if a Russian inventor's device catches on.

Alexander Lavrynov, a spacecraft designer, said he has patented a device for putting advertising into space that would be seen from Earth, Interfax news agency reported today.

"Space commercials could embrace huge areas and a colossal number of consumers," he said. "This would literally be intercontinental coverage."

The satellites would be visible in the night sky by employing sunlight reflectors, with multiple satellites linked together to create a message large enough to be seen.

"People would be able to see writing in the skies from the Earth no worse than they see the stars," he said.

Pop star George Michael is abandoning the music business to release his songs online for free instead.

The multi-millionaire singer said he will never make another album for sale in record shops because he does not need the cash and does not enjoy fame.

Fans will be given the option to make donations online in exchange for downloading the tracks, and the proceeds will be given to charity.

Explaining his decision, the former Wham! frontman said: "It does two things - it takes the pressure off to have a collection of songs every so many years, which is what nearly killed me."

"I'm not pretending I won't be famous any more, but in the modern world if you take yourself out of the financial aspect of things, you're not making anybody any money, you're not losing anybody any money."

Internet service provider Comcast Corp. is cutting off Internet service for some customers whose computers are being used to relay spam messages, according to a company spokeswoman.

"Comcast is one of the favored networks of spammers, because Comcast customers have a lot of bandwidth and are usually not secured against common (software) vulnerabilities," Ullrich said.

At the same time, Senderbase records show what appear to be the Internet Protocol addresses of more than 40 Comcast customers who have sent out more than 100,000 e-mail messages a day, with many sending close to 1 million daily e-mail messages. ( http://www.senderbase.org/?searchString=comcast.net&searchBy=domain.)

Ullrich said the Internet Storm Center tells Comcast when it finds infected hosts by sending a message to a Comcast e-mail address set up to receive complaints about abuse. Typically the company does not respond directly to such reports, but it has moved to shut down infected hosts after receiving complaints, he said.

A US woman has been charged with forgery after trying to use a fake $1 million bill at a supermarket.

Alice Pike, 35, pulled out the note at a Georgia Wal-Mart store to pay for $1,672 worth of goods and asked for change, police said.

The cashier immediately noticed the bill - bearing the picture of the Statue of Liberty - was fake and called her manager who alerted the police.

"This is the first time in my law enforcement career I've seen someone trying to use a $1 million bill," local police chief Almond Turner was quoted as saying by the Houston Chronicle newspaper.

Microsoft has been mailing free copies of its pricey Office productivity software to government employees, but CNET News.com has learned that at least two federal agencies are warning recipients to return the gifts or risk violating federal ethics policies.

Since the launch of Office 2003 last year, Microsoft has given out tens of thousands of free copies of its flagship software, which retails for about $500, to workers at its biggest customers. The giveaway was expanded to government workers this year, but ethics offices at the Department of the Interior and Department of Defense have said the offers constitute unauthorized gifts and must be returned.

The Department of the Army went a step further, calling on Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates to stop sending the software to Army personnel.

"Not every government organization, as we're learning, finds it to be a valuable program," Hodson said. "We would like to think that there will be a variety of government organizations that will find value in the program."

Terrorist attacks are very rare. So rare, in fact, that the odds of being the victim of one in an industrialized country are almost nonexistent. And most attacks affect only a few people. The events of September 11 were a statistical anomaly. Even counting the toll they took, 2,978 people in the US died from terrorism in 2001. That same year, 157,400 Americans died of lung cancer, 42,116 in road accidents, and 3,454 from malnutrition.

Even defending against a specific threat is very difficult. Security is only as strong as its weakest link; three locks on the front door do little good if the back door is open. Likewise, the air transportation system is only as secure as the country's most insecure airport, because once someone passes through security at one location, they don't have to do so at another.

Many of the security measures we encounter on a daily basis aim pinpoint the bad guys by treating everyone as a suspect. The Department of Homeland Security counts on technology to come to our rescue: databases to track suspected terrorists, facial recognition to spot them in airports, artificial intelligence to anticipate plots before they unfold. But that creates a problem similar to the one you see when airport security screeners waste their time frisking false alarms. Terrorists are so rare that any individual lead is almost certainly a false one. So billions of dollars are wasted with no assurance that any terrorist will be caught. When an airport screener confiscates a pocketknife from an innocent person, security has failed.

Microsoft is writing to software developers to warn that some of its programs will not work on Windows XP after the new service pack is introduced.

It has asked developers to test out their software on the beta of Service Pack 2, because it is pretty sure that some will not work.

The Redmond Giant said that this was because the new service pack is designed to enhance security and some of the older applications were simply full of holes.

Tony Goodhew of Microsoft said: "It may surprise some of the developers that we are changing some defaults, and that may affect the way some of the older applications run."

He added that applications that don't work on SP 2 are insecure. SP 2 will focus on browsing security, memory protection, network protection and email security.