| abstract | - Facebook caves in to Beacon criticism Facebook came under withering criticism from its users and privacy advocates alike when a security researcher revealed that the ad system tracks user activities on third-party partner sites -- including the activities of people who never signed up with Facebook, who deactivated their accounts or who were not signed on to the site. House vote on illegal images sweeps in Wi-Fi, Web sites The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including "obscene" cartoons and drawings--or face fines of up to $300,000. AT&T claims completely open network, too -- "the most open," even! AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega's comments that "You can use any handset on our network you want... We don't prohibit it, or even police it. ... We are the most open wireless company in the industry." We think the headline "AT&T flings cellphone network wide open" kind of says it all. Major copyright bill boosts penalties, creates new agency In the aftermath of the $222,000 jury verdict that the Recording Industry Association of America recently won against a Minnesota woman who shared 24 songs on Kazaa, the U.S. Congress is preparing to amend copyright law." Space shifting DVDs to cost extra? Depending on who you listen to Steve Jobs has supposedly been pitching the idea of selling "premium" DVDs that would include an extra fee for the privilege of transferring your legally-purchased DVD to a different device. Microsoft Wants To Give You A Rorschach "Microsoft has set up a website that uses inkblot images to help users create passwords. The site asks users view a series of inkblots and write down the first and last letters of whatever word they associate with each inkblot. Then they combine the letters to form a password. Microsoft claims it's a way to create passwords that are easy to remember but hard to crack. But a word of warning, the story notes that Microsoft is collecting and storing users' word associations." Google will become Zabasearch" n an unsurprising but perhaps disturbing move, search giant Google is partnering with state governments to index public records. According to Associated Press, you can already find some online, but you have to go through each state's government Web sites to locate a particular piece of information. Lenovo Announces ThinkPads Preloaded With XP Lenovo just announced new ThinkPad T61 models preloaded with Microsoft Windows XP. Ironically they're called ThinkPad T61 'TopSeller' models. Lenovo says they're aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. Spam Promoting Ron Paul Traced to Ukrainian Botnet A researcher at SecureWorks has traced the October flood of deceptive spam promoting Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul to a criminal botnet of compromised computers run out of Ukraine, which was rented for the three-day job Dell to sell PCs at Best Buy Beginning in the next few weeks, Dell notebooks and desktops will be for sale at Best Buy, the companies announced Thursday. Microsoft grounds 'dirty' Santa Microsoft shut down the automated Santa Claus that it created for children to chat with on Windows Live Messenger, after an article from The Register reported that it had an objectionable chat with a reader's underage nieces. Microsoft said Santa's comment on oral sex was provoked by a person who could make the tool "do things it wasn't supposed to do." Santa ended the chat with a cheery, "dirty bastard." Post office drawback cited in dark forecast for Netflix A research note issued by Citigroup on Tuesday said 70 percent of Netflix return mailers must be sorted by hand. The New York Times
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