Even more so as of late.

Yes, GM and Chrysler have done some Less-Than-Smart things. But their down turns have been pretty much on par with all the other auto manufacturers out there.

To Karl, a 38-year-old former cabdriver hoping for a career in real estate sales, the help-wanted ad radiated hope.

The ad sought "correspondence managers" willing to receive parcels at home, then reship them overseas. The pay: $24 a package.

Karl applied at kflogistics.biz, a fraudulent Web site imitating a legitimate site.

He quickly received an e-mail notifying him he had landed the job, followed by instructions on how to take receipt of digital cameras and laptop computers, affix new labels and "reship" the items overseas. Easy enough.

If there ever were a law which had nothing but bad or unintended consequences, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act would likely be it. Since it was signed into law, corporations have attempted to use it to suppress security advisories, deter the publication of scientific research, and eliminate consumers' fair use rights. The DMCA makes it illegal to make an end run around any restriction a manufacturer places on the use of something that's copyrighted -- including, for example, creating a device that lets you skip the commercials on a DVD.

A group of Microsoft researchers, including Paul 'Mr Secure PC' England, has delivered a paper which concludes that all efforts to stop content swapping/theft - possibly even including Palladium - are in the long term futile. This message, particularly the bit that dealt with the economics of DRM-enabled versus 'clean' content, must have gone down a storm with the audience.

Which, since you ask, was the Association for Computing Machinery DRM conference.

Re-printed from Automotive News / October 14, 2002

Call it the allegory of the baked potato. This comparison of how different automakers might bake a potato has been making the rounds on the industry's e-mail circuit.

This year we used TaxACT Online to do our taxes. It was painless, quick, and only cost a total of $15.00 to e-file both our federal and state returns.