Friday, June 24, 2005
Slashdot | IBM Shifts 14,000 Jobs to India
'The New York Times reports, 'Even as it lays off up to 13,000 workers in Europe and the U.S., I.B.M. plans to increase its payroll in India this year by more than 14,000 workers.' Slashdot previously covered the black-and-blue strike, in which the union wondered, 'if other cost cutting mechanisms could achieve the same effect without cutting so may job"
Slashdot | Identity Thieves Drain Unemployment Benefit Funds
'According to a News.com.com article, the defrauding of state government unemployment benefit programs is the most underpublicized identity theft crime and the states are not doing much about it. Identity thieves are using stolen social security numbers to file false unemployment claims and collecting benefits because the states have no systems in place to deter fraud. In fact, it is easier to convert stolen identity data into money by filing false unemployment claims than going after the credit card companies.' From the article: 'File a false unemployment claim and you can receive $400 per week for 26 weeks. Do it for 100 Social Security numbers and you've made a quick $1.04 million. It's tough to make crime pay much better than that.'"
Slashdot | Major Browsers Have JS Pop-Up Flaw
'Secunia is warning that several popular browsers contain a vulnerability that could allow a phishing attack. 'The problem is that JavaScript dialog boxes do not display or include their origin, which allows a new window to open -- for example, a prompt dialog box -- which appears to be from a trusted site,' Secunia said. The browsers include the latest versions of IE, IE for Mac, Safari, iCab, Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox and Camino. Opera 7 and 8 are also affected but not 8.01.'"
Slashdot | eBay Starts Open-Source Community
Matt wrote to mention a MacWorld story discussing a new initiative by auction site eBay to open source parts of its search functionality, in order to expand their coder resources. From the article: ' The software will be available under a new program called Community Codebase, which was announced at the eBay Developers Conference in San Jose, California, on Tuesday. The Community Codebase is free for all members of eBay's Developers Program and PayPal Developer Network. (Pay Pal is owned by eBay.) It allows individual developers and companies to access source code for various eBay and PayPal tools and applications. An example is a Java application that allows TiVo users to search and bid on items via their digital video recorder boxes. Other examples include a Firefox toolbar, various Pay Pal toolkits and an application used to extract information from Pay Pal's database and putting it into Microsoft Corp.'s Excel spreadsheet software.'"
Slashdot | Aussie Spammer Faces Millions in Fines
'An alleged Australian spammer could face millions in fines if he's found guilty of breaking the country's anti-spam laws, reports ZDNet. The Australian Communications Authority alleges that Wayne Mansfield and his company, Clarity 1, sent at least 56 million commercial e-mails in the 12 months after the Spam Act was enacted in April 2004.'"
BBC NEWS | Technology | Software piracy 'seen as normal'
| By Alfred Hermida Technology editor, BBC News website |
Campaigns to persuade people to stop downloading pirated games or software from the internet are not working, a report suggests. 
Two UK university researchers found that people did not see downloading copyrighted material as theft.
The findings are unwelcome news for the games industry, which says it loses more than £2bn annually from piracy.
The results of the government-funded study were previewed at a games conference in London.
The report, called Fake Nation, is due to be formally presented next week by Dr Jo Bryce of the University of Central Lancashire and Dr Jason Rutter of the University of Manchester.
Crime? What crime?
The study was commissioned to find out if the anti-piracy message was having an impact on people's attitudes.
Most campaigns in the UK have focused on the damage being done by software or film piracy. 
The purchase of counterfeit goods or illegal downloading are seen as normal leisure practices 
They have also pushed the idea that consumers are supporting organised crime when they buy a game or DVD from someone in the street.
Despite ads in the cinema, magazines and newspapers, the message is falling on deaf ears.
"Consumers have an awareness of the scale of the problem and cost, but don't take onboard industry concerns or government messages," said Dr Bryce, a senior lecturer in psychology.
The researchers found that people did not equate downloading a game with the idea of shoplifting the disc from a shop.
"People are more accepting of it, even if they didn't engage it in themselves," said Dr Bryce. "They don't see it as a great problem on a social or economic level.
"They just don't see it as theft. They just see it as inevitable, particularly as new technologies become available."
Unsurprisingly, the main reason people grab games from the net was because they are free.
But scratching beneath the surface, the researchers found that not having to pay for games was particularly attractive for teenagers, as it meant they had more money for other things.
"Teenagers are being tactical spenders," said Dr Bryce. "The money saved lets them spend more on mobile phones, going to the cinema or eating out."
Pub pirates
In the past, much of the anti-piracy drive has been directed against people selling counterfeit discs at markets or on street corners.
The games trade body, the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association, (Elspa) has a 40-strong anti-piracy unit.
Last year, it carried out 538 raids across the UK, seizing £4m worth of copied games and successfully prosecuting 67 software counterfeiters. 
But the Fake Nation study suggests these efforts may also be misguided. The researchers found that most people did not buy counterfeit software from dodgy dealers on street corners.
Instead they bought games from people they knew in places like the office, the pub or at school.
"The purchase of counterfeit goods or illegal downloading are seen as normal leisure practices," said Dr Bryce.
"The downloading of games is a burgeoning issue, and with broadband growing, this is likely to increase and drive access to pirated games away from commercial interests into people's homes."
Cost to creativity
Despite the study's results, Michael Rawlinson, deputy head of Elspa, remained confident that attitudes towards pirated software could be changed.
"It is possible to effect a change in young people's behaviour once you explain the process of creation in bringing these products to market," he said.
But he admitted that wiping out illegal downloads would take time and money.
"The government has spent millions of pounds to change public awareness of drink-driving and smoking.
"As a society, we need to go through a similar process for creativity and intellectual property."
Around 2,400 people were questioned via the post and the web for the study between August and September last year. The researchers also held 12 focus groups.
