Airport Police Know All About Travelers
The officers stationed at Boston's Logan airport are going to be equipped with Blackberry devices that connect to a database containing personal information on 98 percent of U.S. adults. The information is gained mostly from public records and includes apartment lease and phone number information, including phone numbers that are unlisted. Though having this knowledge available to authorities bothers privacy groups, police argue that this information is already publicly available, just not in such an easily-accessible manor.

eBay Scammer Sent to Jail
A 19-year old who sold goods on eBay and never delivered was sentenced to three years in prison. The California man, who was also fined $20,000, was previously caught at age 17 for another online scam in which he promised bettors that he had tips that couldn't lose.

Recognition Can Be Made without Passwords
Researchers in Israel are looking for a way to authenticate users without making them learn passwords. The concept involves using a series of pictures that people can identify, but that they would have a hard time explaining to others. Tests showed that this method was 70-90 percent effective over a three-month period, and that the pictures have a slim chance of being identified by others.

Suing Spammers Proves Wasteful
Last week the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a report that spoke out against a national "do not mail" registry, saying that it would be more of a source for spammers than a useful tool. What wasn't as publicized was that the FTC's report also spoke about the time and money spent to prosecute spammers, and that given the complexity of determining the sources of spam, prosecution is not necessarily worth the time and expense.

Cell Phone Directory Plagued by Privacy Concerns
Privacy concerns are stronger in western states, and citizens there are hoping to keep their cell phone numbers private, without having to pay for the privilege. Right now, many people in western states pay to keep their home phone numbers private. Not only are they concerned about the lack of privacy if their cell phone number is published, but they are concerned about the cost of paying for unwanted phone calls. The Wireless 411 Privacy Act has been proposed, asking that cell phone companies do not charge to keep a customer's number out of the directory and that they give customers a clear choice on being included or not. Cell phone service providers have stated that they will not sell the phone numbers to third parties and will not post the information on the Internet. Privacy groups are concerned.

Recording Industry Suing More File Swappers
The RIAA has filed suit against 482 online music swappers in the U.S., though they don't know the names of the people they're suing. They hope the names will be found in the court discovery process, much like the way they're found in a spam case. More than 3,000 people have been sued for trading music online, and though the efforts may have helped with public perception, the jury is still out on whether swapping has slowed because of these suits.

Drastic Anti-Spam Measures Called For
America Online, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Earthlink, among others, have formed the "Anti-Spam Technical Alliance" and announced strict regulations that they're hoping will help curtail spam. Nearly two-thirds of spam is being sent by hijacked computers (users don't know their PC is sending spam mail), and this alliance is recommending limits to the amount of mail any machine can send in a given timeframe. The proposal means that a user's computer would be cut off from the ISP if too many mails were sent, and regular users should not be affected because the limit would be 100 to 500 mails per day.

Prevent the Clipboard from Appearing
You may have noticed that whenever you're in Word and you cut and paste more than one time, a clipboard with multiple items will appear. Like many people, you may not have learned to use this new clipboard, and so you may want to prevent it from popping up each time you cut and paste. This requires editing your registry, so you may not want to try this unless you're confident you can do it correctly. To begin, close any programs that are currently running. Then choose Start, Run, type Regedit, and choose OK. Navigate to the following path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\General. If you're running a different version of Office you may see 10.0 instead of 9.0. If this is the case, there will already be an AcbControl key and you will not have to create one, only modify what is there. If you are running 9.0, choose Edit, New, DWORD value, and you will see a New Value #1 appear in the right pane. Rename this value to AcbControl. Choose Edit,

Customize Your Right-Click Menus
If you ever write any HTML, you may have had the occasion to use Notepad. And if you use Notepad, chances are you've right-clicked on a .htm file in Windows Explorer, then chosen Open With, and then Notepad. You can cut down on these steps by creating a new right-click option that allows you to open the file directly with Notepad. You can use the following technique to customize any file type to have this type of right-click shortcut. To begin, open Windows Explorer. Choose Tools, Folder Options, and then the File Types tab. Scroll down until you find the HTM file type. Click once on HTM and then choose the Advanced button. Choose the New button and type Open in &Notepad in the Action text box. The ampersand allows you to use N as a shortcut once you've opened the right-click menu. Then type c:\windows\notepad.exe %1 in the Application text box. The %1 stands for the path of the file you want to open. OK to finish. Now find a .htm file in Windows Explorer. Whe

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