You Can’t Jail Me, I’m English!
U.S. anti-terrorism laws are supposed to fight extremists who wish to do us
harm. But a 40-year-old English idiot may
find
himself in Guantanamo wearing an orange jump suit and enduring the hot Cuban
sun. That’s because Gary McKinnon made the stupid mistake of busting into
U.S. military and NASA computers, wreaking $700,000 worth of havoc. That type
of action could land McKinnon in a U.S. court facing terrorism charges that
carry ungodly steep penalties.
While this seems to be a misuse of terrorism laws, if it gets one hacker off the
street and serves as a warning to others, then it can’t be all bad. What
do you think? Write me at [email protected].
Linux Geeks Have a New Bookmark: Microsoft.com
At the recent LinuxWorld show, one
announcement managed to slip under my radar: Microsoft has a new Web site
promoting Linux/Windows interoperability (or is that Windows/Linux interoperability?).
Set up through TechNet, the site lets Microsoft interact with open source developers
toward the goal of making Linux and other tools play nice in the Redmond world.
This could be good for Linux. If open source tools integrate nicely on corporate
environments, IT has one more reason to say yes. And Microsoft has all the more
reason to keep improving its products.
Is Live Clipboard Just Another Name for OLE?
Does anyone remember OLE, otherwise known as Object Linking and Embedding? This
technology allowed applications to dynamically share data, so your Excel spreadsheet
could continually update a related table in Word (and yes, OLE worked with non-Microsoft
applications).
A new technology from Ray Ozzie and his team brings this concept to the Web. With
Live
Clipboard, one can cut and paste a dynamic Web data OBJECT, EMBED it in
a Web page, and maintain the LINK to the original data source. Maybe they should
call it OEL.
No Wonder the Geek Squad Is So Cheap
Winternals could have been flattered to learn the Best Buy Geek Squad relied
so heavily on its system recovery tools. But when it found out Best Buy didn’t
have the proper licenses, Winternals’ pride turned to anger. Its revenge
is a court
order forcing Best Best to stop using the software.
Winternals actually gave Best Buy the software to test as part of a potential
multi-million-dollar sale. After the deal fell through, Best Buy Geeks kept using the
software. Now that's a discount electronics retailer if I’ve ever
seen one. Wonder if Winternals would settle for a few hundred flat screen TVs
and a couple dozen Xboxes for the office?
About the Author
Doug Barney is editor in chief of Redmond magazine and the VP, editorial director of Redmond Media Group.