Apr
22
Computer Crime Charges to Entrepreneur
Filed Under Computer Crime | Comments
A Connecticut woman was charged with selling pirated computer software on eBay. It seems Julie Pollowitz was charged with first-degree computer crime, second-degree forgery and sixth-degree larceny. A Louisiana man said that he paid her $87 for software that was pirated and unworkable.
When police searched her home they found 54 CDs with illegally copied software. Police say she copied about $10k of software and sold copies to unsuspecting buyers.
Pollowitz told police that she didn’t know copying software was illegal and that “everybody does it.”
A few comments here
- what if the software had worked? What the buyers objection to “pirated” or unworkable?
- Was it a customer support problem? If Julie had made things right with her buyer would he have filed charges?
- Surely everyone past elementary school knows the “everybody does it” defense doesn’t work
- Does she get any credit for starting a low-margin home business?
Computer Crime Charges — Courant.com:
Apr
21
Infosecurity Europe did a “survey” where members of the public in the UK were asked to fill in a survey that included sharing their password — 45% of women gave up their password — the reward for filling out the survey was a bar of chocolate. The big store was that only 10% of men gave it up for chocolate, of course it wouldn’t be hard to imagine a reward that would make men give up a password pretty quickly.
The story seemed to have legs because it was the usual fluff that showed the silliness of women and dependence on mood altering substances like chocolate. No mention was made as to whether the passwords given were real or just a way of getting free chocolate.
CBR carried the story with a straight face
The Inquirer, at least, thought it was funny
Apr
21
AmazonMP3, launched in September, is second to Apple’s iTunes Store in selling downloaded tracks of music, but the difference between number 1 and 2 is a huge one — Apple iTunes sales were 10x that of Amazon according to market research firm NPD.
Other interesting factoids are that the iTunes store has now beat out Walmart as the top music retailer.
The NPD study shows no evidence that Apple customers are leaving iTunes for the DRM-free environment of AmazonMP3. Not surprising really — most people are going to put the music on their iPod anyway so who cares about DRM, the only real concern is how easy is it to take the song and put it somewhere I can play it. DRM or not DRM is a theoretical and boring argument for most people. When they copy music, it’s to put it on an iPod.
Apr
14
Clinton’s pandering for votes in Pennsylvania has her becoming the down home candidate. We’re waiting of the pictures of the gun rack that she and Bill must have had in the White House limousines.
Her new-populism should please John Edwards and Willie Stark. Odd to make the first African-American candidate into a white elitist.