Meehowski

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Make-A-Wish scam reported BY MAYRA FLORES Times staff writer Internet users be warned. The Laredo Police Department are advising users of ongoing online scams in the guise of soliciting donations for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Police said Internet thieves are posing as officials from the Make-A-Wish Foundation to ask for donations through the use of chain letters. A fraudulent e-mail claims that "a 7-year-old girl named Amy Bruce, who is suffering from a brain tumor and lung cancer, will receive seven cents from the Make-A-Wish Foundation each time her letter is forwarded via e-mail." Another e-mail claims that "in 1989, a then 9-year-old boy named Craig Shergold wanted to be recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records for receiving the most greeting cards. His wish was fulfilled in 1990 after receiving more than 16 million cards." According to officials from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, these requests are completely false. "We do not solicit any donations through the use of the Internet, via telephone or chain letters," said Tammy Shaklee, executive director of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. "We remain active with charitable foundations, but those are not the methods in doing so," Shaklee added. Variations of the chain letters include names such as Jeff DeLeon, Rhyan Desquetado, LaNisha Jackson, Nikisha Johnson, Jessie Anderson, and Anthony Hebrank among others. Laredo Police Public Information officer Juan Rivera said the Laredo Police has been notified of this matter. "It is not a crime to send chain letters, however, the person originating the letter and receiving the funds can be charged with fraud," Rivera said. Anyone receiving these types of e-mails can call the Make-A-Wish Laredo-based office at 712-WISH. (Times Staff Writer Mayra Flores can be reached at 728-2582 or by email at [email protected]) http://www.lmtonline.com/news/s11.htm

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From correspondents in California November 30, 2003 SHERIFF officials said several wireless microphones discovered outside their headquarters could be the latest of several attempts by journalists to surreptitiously get information on the Michael Jackson molestation case. The devices were found in a brushy area where Sheriff's Department employees frequently take breaks and where reporters are not normally allowed. Officials did not say when they discovered the microphones. "It is being interpreted by the department as an attempt by somebody within the media to garner information that otherwise would not be available," Sgt Chris Pappas of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department, said yesterday. Hundreds of reporters and photographers converged on the Sheriff's Department on November 20, when Jackson was booked at a nearby jail on suspicion of sexually molesting a child under 14. The entertainer, who is free on $US3 million ($4.16 million) bail, has maintained his innocence. Authorities say he probably won't be charged until after December 15. A man claiming to be a news and photo agency reporter was arrested on November 20 after Jackson's security staff found him aboard the entertainer's private plane while Jackson was surrendering to authorities. Last week, Jackson and his lawyer learned they were secretly videotaped by a camera hidden aboard the plane when Jackson travelled from Las Vegas to Santa Barbara to turn himself in. The discovery triggered an FBI investigation and a lawsuit by Jackson against the charter jet company. AP http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.js...&storyid=568993

Major DirectConnect Hub Shut Down November 28, 2003 Thomas Mennecke Until recently, the DirectConnect network has managed to stay off the mainstream media's radar. While this may have seemed to be the case, the mere fact that the DirectConnect network advertises more available information than FastTrack has not gone unnoticed to copyright authorities. This has become more obvious recently with the shut down of a large New Zealand based hub, P2p.net.nz. The interesting twist to the story centers on the fact that the managing director of Orcon was the owner of P2p.net.nz. However, in Orcon's plight to become a legitimate player in the ISP world, it realized that it was necessary to terminate the hub. In addition, the Recording Industry Association (the New Zealand version of the RIAA) was inches away from filing a hefty lawsuit against Orcon. With the managing director of the ISP in actual ownership of the hub, pleading ignorance probably would have not bought itself legal wiggle room. http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=329

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By The Farmer in the Dell Dell has pulled another tech support boner that will affect a LOT of people. First they set up a phone bank in India that is staffed with people who seem more interested in transferring callers than helping them with their problems, and now they've instituted a policy that keeps us from educating customers and helping them resolve a major problem - spyware. According to the policy that's been recently released to the support folks, we can no longer mention 'spyware' to a caller, get them to visit a site like doxdesk.com to see if they have parasites installed, or recommend a spyware removal program. If a caller has any problems that might be spyware-related (home page hijacked, pop-ups, slow connections, PCs that start dialing out by themselves, etc.), we can only refer them to their ISP for help. The rationale behind this? Spyware removal programs might violate the license agreement of another program they have installed (Kazaa, iMesh, etc.) and Dell doesn't want to be responsible for that. Never mind that SpyBot and Ad-Aware tell you that this is a possibility when you run them, Dell will not let us tell people about the programs or discuss the ramifications with the callers. I brought up the issue of Dell asking a user to accept a license agreement they have never read when I first saw it in Lockergnome (9/2/2003 Gnome Report), and after forwarding the information to 3 supervisors and discussing it with them, there is still no official resolution. I have tried to get approval to help callers uninstall the crap that various file sharing programs install, and have been told that we cannot support that. And now we are being told that even if we know what the problem is, we cannot tell callers what that problem is or how to fix it. My solution? I am going to refer people to my little site as long as I am still doing (what passes for) support at the call center - but that will not be for much longer. I can tolerate the micro-management of the call center if I can actually help people, but it is fast becoming a blame game where we have to refer people to someone else whether they will be able to help or not. And when the ISP refers people back to us because the Internet connection is okay, the customer will be the big loser since we can't even tell them what their problem is. Dude! You're getting a runaround! Here's a recent office memo that I think you'll all get a kick out of. Enjoy! Good morning all: The below e-mail was communicated to the floor yesterday. I have agents flooding me with questions on how they are supposed to handle these types of issues. We will probably want to get something out to the floor fairly quickly on what they should do with these types of calls. Are we not supposed to mention it at all? If we tell them to go to google or dogpile and search for spyware are we not then endorsing those browsers? I can't find any information on support.dell.com or delltech on this issue. Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks, Piett Subject: Spyware: What we can say to the customer Dell does not support or endorse the use of spyware removal programs. NOTICE: Use of spyware removal software may conflict with user license agreements of other applications installed on your system. Please consult your user license agreements for further information. Dell does not endorse the use of spyware removal software and cannot provide support on these products. This means we do not take callers to download.com or doxdesk.com, nor do we recommend spyware removal programs, nor do we advise callers on the use of spyware removal programs. This includes using phrases "We don't support the removal of spyware, but I use... " http://channels.lockergnome.com/windows/ba.../20031126.phtml

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November 28, 2003 AUSTRALIAN Idol runner-up Shannon Noll has secured a music deal with BMG Australia, the same recording label as series winner Guy Sebastian. Sebastian, 21, beat Noll last week in a national phone poll and secured a recording contract with the record label. However, it seems both singers have won. "Shannon Noll is a fantastic singer and one of the nicest people I have ever met," BMG Australia managing director Ed St John said. "But more than that, I think he embodies a sense of Australianness that you simply don't see very often. "He's real, he's honest, he has integrity and he has strength." Noll, 27, from Condobolin in NSW, said he was thrilled to take the next step in his career. "I'm so thankful to the Australian public for their ongoing support that has taken me this far, and now to score a record deal is just amazing," Noll said. His first single, a cover version of the Moving Pictures hit What About Me, will be released to radio stations on December 15 and to the public on January 26. His debut album will be released early next year. Sebastian has already released his single – Angels Brought Me Here – with an album due out next month. He is off to London next month to represent Australia in the World Idol series. The international show will include Sebastian, British winner Will Young, American Idol Kelly Clarkson, and other Idol series winners from South Africa, Poland, Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Middle East, Belgium and Canada. Viewers in each country will choose the winner by voting over the phone, with the results broadcast during the New Year period. http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.js...&storyid=558088

Tide Has Turned Posted by George D. Ziemann on November 27, 2003 at 12:38 PM (printer friendly) by George Ziemann For a brief moment, I thought there was something extra to be thankful for this year. I guess I should just accept it as a token of the RIA's defeat and celebrate. Because even the downside has an upside. The Good News Frank Ehrens of the Washington Post has an article today, titled, "Music Industry Reluctantly Yielding to Internet Reality." (Complete Story) Ehrens says we won, guys. "The battle over online song trading is over; the Internet has won. The music industry is grudgingly giving up on the idea that it can preserve the tightly controlled business practices that once made record companies and artists flush with cash. Instead, a transformation is underway." "Revenue across the industry continues to decline -- and layoffs continue to pile up -- as companies race to catch up to unauthorized services such as Kazaa and Morpheus, which have millions of devotees." Then he goes into a long sales pitch for the "legitimate" music services. Blah, blah, blah, the industry is working so hard... blah, blah... "new opportunities to commercialize online music"... blah, blah, Napster...blah, blah, iTunes... blah blah Rhapsody, etc. blah, etc. "The downside to all of these legal services instantly is apparent to anyone who has used them: Gaping holes in the song catalogue. For instance, four of the 14 songs on Jay-Z's "The Black Album" are not available for purchase on BuyMusic.com. Yet the entire album can be found for free by using Limewire, a service not licensed to distribute songs." "Services such as BuyMusic.com attempt to compensate for these gaps by offering back catalogue and live versions of songs when they can't get the hits. At BuyMusic.com, for instance, hard-core R.E.M. fans can load up on B-side tunes from the obscure 1987 'Dead Letter Office' compilation CD but cannot buy any songs from the recently released greatest-hits album." "Which is why unauthorized services such as Kazaa retain their appeal." Services such as iTunes "are not an alternative to [Kazaa]. They include restrictions, the selection is pathetic," said Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing some defendants in the music industry lawsuits. Services such as Kazaa "have millions of tracks -- stuff that's out of print, stuff that's never been widely available. That's what music fans deserve. You're asking people to trade the greatest library of recorded music ever created for this very limited selection." Of course, von Lohman's statemnet has to be "balanced," so Ehrens adds this... "Since the Recording Industry Association of America announced in early summer that it would initiate legal action against pirates, Kazaa's users have been fleeing, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, which monitors Internet traffic. At the end of the first week of June, Kazaa had 7 million users per week. In the week after the RIAA launched its first wave of lawsuits, on Sept. 8, that number was down to 4.2 million. By the end of the first full week of November, Kazaa was down to 3.2 million users." Before I begin my rant, Kazaa users are urged to post today's REAL usage, which I will incorporate into the story. The Bad News "The battle over online song trading is over; the Internet has won. The music industry is grudgingly giving up on the idea that it can preserve the tightly controlled business practices that once made record companies and artists flush with cash. Instead, a transformation is underway." You evil, evil P2P users. You see, the record labels have been taking care of the artists so well throughout the last 50 years. Then P2P came along a ruined everything overnight. You destroyed everything. The artists will no longer be "flush with cash" and it's YOUR DAMN FAULT. They had their "tightly controlled business practices" going just fine until you came along. Of course, I'm being sarcastic. If you drop a 1990-2002 chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (end of year value) on top of a chart of CD shipments for the same period (just lop off the ending zero on the DJIA and they're the same scale) and any moron can see that the economy has driven the sales decline. It's a no-brainer. The plain truth is that the economy has turned, the music biz sees it happening and they have no choice but to shut the hell up. The best they can do is try to pretend P2P use is down or else their entire "piracy" scam is going to blow up in their face any minute now. Now they're going to shrink back under the woodworkfrom whence they came, where slime belongs, turn the screws even tighter on the artists and go back to their usual ways of sneaking in legislation to benefit themselves. And it's your fault. You see, the war is not over. In my opinion, the entire P2P issue is, and has always been, a sideshow to cast light away from their business and accounting practices. It's no surprise that they are "tightly controlled" since that's the way they like to keep their artists. Nothing has changed in this respect. And nothing will until major artists look at their contracts and ask the simple questions -- Whose music is it, anyway? Almost forgot the upside to the downside -- they'll never get the Indie mp3 files off the net because they can't keep their OWN mp3 files off the Net. The majors are screwed. The Indies have an opportunity. http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/9214

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One of my all-time favorite artists!! http://www.bowiewonderworld.com/tours/2003.htm

I hope they tour.........

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