My recent column about Ticketmaster and its privacy policy has prompted a number of readers to point out other companies with dubious privacy policies of their own.

A Massachusetts court has blocked several recording industry subpoenas that are aimed at college song swappers, saying the universities involved are not immediately required to divulge the alleged file traders' identities.

The decision comes after officials at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston College challenged subpoenas from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), saying the trade group's requests for information had not been legally filed.

The judge's decisions give the universities--and the anonymous students or staff file traders who are the ultimate target of the subpoenas--some breathing room. The colleges were objecting only on the technical legal grounds that the RIAA had filed the subpoenas in the wrong court, which means the trade group still can revise its requests in order to comply with the judge's order.

LAS VEGAS--A strange two-wheeled creature was skimming through the halls of the Alexis Park Hotel on Sunday--a robot that sniffs out network vulnerabilities.

Created by two members of a loose association of security experts called the Shmoo Group, the robot is designed to wheel around on its own detecting and reporting the security problems of Wi-Fi wireless networks.

"The point of the hacker robot is that it can become an autonomous hacker droid," said Paul Holman, the robot's co-designer, who demonstrated it for the first time at the "DefCon" hacker convention here. "It can get in close to the network. On the offensive side, it can be used for corporate or political espionage. On the defensive side, it can be used for network vulnerability assessment."

paulnuyu writes "ZDNet/MSN has an article about a robot that detects Wi-Fi vulnerabilities and intrusions. The two wheeled robot made by the Shmoo Group cruised around the DefCon convention in Vegas last Sunday, picking up telnet and POP passwords. Though still a prototype, the shipping version is projected to have autonomous steering capabilities."

There wouldn't be spam if there wasn't money in spam. So to understand what primes the spam economy, MSNBC.com answered a single unsolicited commercial e-mail. Following this one spam trail led us from Alabama to Argentina, from a tiny Birmingham-based firm and someone named "Erp" past a notorious spammer named Super-Zonda -- and right through big-name companies like Ameriquest, Quicken, and LoanWeb. And that's just the beginning. The truth about spam is this: While the dirty work is done by secretive, faceless computer jockeys who are constantly evading authorities, lots of companies with names you know profit, at least tangentially, from their efforts.

An anonymous reader writes "MSNBC's Bob Sullivan doggedly follows a spam trail from Alabama to Argentina to find out who actually benefits from spam. The beneficiaries aren't necessarily the pasty faced, high school drop out industrial spammers we have gotten to know, but well known companies."

An anonymous reader writes "If James Bond was into wireless hacking, this would be his rig."

It's all around you, thinking on its own and acting on its own--the Sensor Web, that is. The Sensor Web Project is a cutting-edge application of networked sensor technology currently on the fast track at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Other kinds of sensor networks--such as mesh networks--have grabbed headlines recently, but NASA and JPL officials claim that Sensor Webs go far beyond anything we've seen before.

Essentially, a Sensor Web consists of a group of pods--small metal boxes set up to collect various kinds of information, communicate with nearby pods, and in some cases, communicate wirelessly with outside devices. What's inside a pod varies but typically includes a microcontroller, microprocessing and computer-like components, cellular communications technology, acoustic sensing components, and more. In many of the current applications for Sensor Webs, a group of pods is designed to collect environmental information. (You can find a complete online description of how a sensor Web works at http://sensorwebs.jpl.nasa.gov .)

ddtstudio writes "PC Mag has a story about the Sensor Web: 'a cutting-edge application of networked sensor technology currently on the fast track at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).' Not only a new way to test tech, but also perhaps a pervasive and inexpensive way to explore remote places such as Antarctica -- or Mars."

Mary Champlin has had the same post office box for 19 years, but now the U.S. Postal Service is threatening to lock the box unless she fills out a new form that she believes is an invasion of privacy.

PS Form 1093, which is dated August 2001, requires people applying for a post office box to list the names and ages of minors or other persons receiving mail. Each adult must present two forms of identification. Any false or misleading information may result in fines or imprisonment, the form warns in italic print.

The new rules were touted as a way to combat mail fraud. But Champlin, a homeschooling mom with a 16-year-old daughter, is outraged. She considers the demand for personal information a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits a government search without "probable cause" that a crime has been committed.

[ ... ]

That's because residents in Brookdale can't get home delivery. They have to stop by the post office, which rents out about 600 boxes.

Other postal customers have been told the mail not addressed to anyone on the form won't be delivered.

"Here is a clear-cut case of the post office's invasion of my privacy," Champlin said. "They are not deciding what mail I will or will not receive. That is not their job. Their job is to deliver mail to an address, not a person."

[ ... ]

It's difficult to discern when existing box-holders are required to file the new form. The postal operations manual says the customer must update the application "when any information required on Form 1093 changes."

The Brookdale postal staff began requiring renewing box-holders in Brookdale to fill out the form last year. At least one box-holder in Santa Cruz reports that hasn't been the case in the downtown branch, which has more than 2,000 boxes.

Asked to explain why, a Santa Cruz postal supervisor said, "They have their own box person up there."