Cash rewards for grassing spammers could be up for grabs

The US Federal and Trade Commission is to consider a report on whether cash rewards for grassing spammers would be effective. The report says that although cyber sleuths may have the technical skills to garner a lot of information about where spam comes from, the evidence needed to identify several streams of spam to a particular source is often not at their disposal. Clearly spammers practice their art for money, and the banks that look after that money and have information such as addresses and so on simply aren't legally able to give it. ...more

Next-gen OpenOffice makes beta 2 available

Open-source office suite developer Openoffice.org has released beta 2 of the software, incorporating bug fixes and Windows compatibility improvements. Among the improvements over the previous beta, Openoffice highlights GUI support for XSLT-based filters; enhanced OLE editing support on Windows; support for printer-independent layout; improvements to PDF export and a raft of bug-fixes. ...more

Boy Scouts take on DVD pirates

Their motto is 'Be Prepared' and soon the Los Angeles Boy Scouts will be prepared to lecture their peers on the evils of buying bootleg DVDs. The Motion Picture Association of America is rolling out a scheme that will allow them to qualify for a 'Respect Copyrights' patch. The curriculum is designed to teach participants about copyright theft and various forms of piracy and how to identify counterfeit CDs/DVDs. ...more

Microsoft optimises MSN for Pocket PCs and Smartphones

Microsoft has announced that Pocket MSN - a version of its MSN online data services - will be optimised for handheld devices and mobile phones. To be precise, devices running Windows-based Pocket PC and mobile phones based on Microsoft's Smartphone OS. The selling point for Pocket MSN will be 'always on' access to online users, whether through email, instant messaging or other online services, such as news based alerts. ...more

Firebird 'brushed up'

The Mozilla organisation has released a minor update of its standalone Web browser, FirebIrd. The update: fixes the auto-complete crash bug; fixes the DOM security restriction bug that broke many bookmarklets; adds support for contentEditable; 'brushes up' the default theme, including updating the toolbar icons; and sets a new application icon. Firebird 0. ...more