Tuesday's Tribal Drum

Good morning news hounds. The Pilgrim's landed in Plymouth on this day in 1620. On 11/11 at 11a, World War I ended in 1918. It's Veteran's Day.

1. The ban on Internet taxes is being blocked in the US Senate. The states are claiming a ban will cost them billions in lost taxes and several former governors who are now senators are holding the bill up. Hawaii, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin are all currently taxing ISPs.
2. Sony's testing a new music copy protection scheme in Germany. The R&B group Naturally Seven is the guinea pig. Supposedly, the protection lets users make personal copies of the disc, but not share it online.
3. Al Gore is urging Bush to rescind the Patriot Act, saying the administration has "taken us much farther down the road toward an intrusive, 'big brother'-style government -- toward the dangers prophesied by George Orwell in his book 1984 -- than anyone ever thought would be possible in the United States of America." Right on.
4. Apple's G5 ads that claim it to be "the world's fastest, most powerful personal computer" have been banned in Britain after complaints by eight AMD users. The Independent Television Commission ruled there was insufficient evidence to back up the claims and that "the G5 was generally as fast as the best Intel-based workstations currently available." Ouch.
5. Meanwhile Apple has released OS X 10.3.1 - the patch fixes problems with Firewire 800 external drives, and data corruption with FileVault. Software Update will patch your system when you log on.
6. According to Infoworld, Microsoft is planning to deflect attention from its own security woes by attacking Linux, claiming open source programmers take longer to patch bugs. So which would you rather use if security were paramount?
7. Open source activist, Bruce Perens, says he'll launch a new Linux distro based on Debian called UserLinux with the backing of major corporate sponsors. UserLinux will always be free and will be certified by major computer manufacturers.
8. Microsoft is attempting to invalidate digital signatures from people claiming rebates on the MSFreePC site. Michael Robertson, CEO of Lindows and creator of the site, says he'll fight the case.
9. Have you noticed an increase in spam lately? On my server Spam Assassin typically caught from 145-190 spams a day in September. It's been well over 200 all this month, with a peak of 292 spams in one day on 11/7. The BBC says it's to be expected. Spam will increase significantly as we approach Christmas.