Bizzy’s AM Coffee Biz-Econ-Life Links (052606)

Free Links:

• So It’s YOUR Fault for Reporting That OUR System Is Vulnerable — Talk about shooting the messenger. Here is an article, and a blog post (HT Techdirt), about how security firms and users are deciding not to report system vulnerabilities because the grief isn’t worth it, and because some system and web site owners are claiming the investigators breached security when they did their investigating — even when they did no harm. So I guess it’s caveat user until you’re burned?
• Dell to Open Retail Stores — But, “….. Sticking with its direct-sales approach, the stores will only carry display models. Consumers will still have to order online or over the phone and then wait for their purchase to arrive in the mail.“ That strikes me as weak, because it is NOT what the consumer will expect. Geez, at least set up terminals in the store they can order from.
• If you have thought that those unsolicited e-mails about pre-approved cards, lottery prizes, and investment opportunities that have been filling up your junk folder are scams, you’re right: “More than 560 people have been arrested in an international investigation of mass-marketing fraud schemes that have victimized more than 2.8 million people in the United States, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Losses exceeded $1 billion in scams that included bogus lottery, prize and sweepstakes offerings, phony preapproved credit card and card protection deals and invitations to pour money into nonexistent investments, the department said.”
• You know it’s bad when so-called “fiscal conservatives” get a lecture from Barney Frank (HT Instapundit) — and Barney Frank is the one who’s right.
• Is Britain devolving into an Orwellian nightmare before our eyes? — “Transport authorities in London are planning to test systems that would prevent cars from going over the speed limit in an attempt to reduce traffic fatalities. They want to create a ‘digital speed-limit map’ that could be used by GPS navigation systems to alert drivers of the speed limit on the road they’re traveling, while it would also presumably be linked to a speed limiter that would cut down engine revolutions should a driver go too fast.”
• Before you file a class-action lawsuit, it’s helpful to have a commitment from your lead plaintiff — Apparently that commitment wasn’t in place in the suit that has been filed over iPod Nano scratches. Oops.
• The State of New York demanded that a home worker based in Tennessee pay New York’s income tax because the branch he reports to is located in The Empire State and the employee occasionally visited — and won in court. Congress may end what has become known as the “telecommuting tax.” They should; it would be a nice break from making mincemeat of immigration law.