Wed 24 Sep 2003
This next toy is an example of the simplest steam engine you will ever see. It has no valves, no moving parts (in the traditional sense of the phrase), and yet it can propel it’s little boat easily across the largest swimming pool or quiet duck pond.
Wed 24 Sep 2003
AP via SiliconValley.com, reports:
WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department’s electronic system for checking every visa applicant for terrorist or criminal history failed worldwide late Tuesday because of a computer virus, leaving the U.S. government unable to issue visas.
The virus crippled the department’s Consular Lookout and Support System, known as CLASS, which contains more than 12.8 million records from the FBI, State Department and U.S. immigration, drug-enforcement and intelligence agencies. Among the names are those of at least 78,000 suspected terrorists.
In an internal message sent late Tuesday to embassies and consular offices worldwide, officials cautioned that “CLASS is down due to a virus found in the system.'’ There was no backup system immediately available, and officials could not predict how long the outage might last.
(more…)
Wed 24 Sep 2003
SAUL HANSELL, The New York Times, reports:
California is trying a deceptively simple approach to the problem of junk e-mail: It is about to ban spam.
Gov. Gray Davis of California signed a bill today that outlaws sending most commercial e-mail to or from the state that the recipient did not explicitly request. That is a far more wide-reaching law than any of the 35 other state laws meant to regulate spam or any of the proposed bills in Congress.
“We are saying that unsolicited e-mail cannot be sent and there are no loopholes,'’ said Kevin Murray, the Democratic state senator from Los Angeles who sponsored the bill.
The law would fine spammers $1,000 for each unsolicited message sent up to $1 million for each campaign.
(more…)
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