“Godfather of Spam” goes to prison for four years
Alan Ralsky, the so-called “Godfather of spam” was yesterday sentenced by a federal judge in Detroit to spend the next 51 months of his life in prison for wire fraud, mail fraud, and violations of the CAN-SPAM act.
Not content simply to move boxes of pills or to sign people up for new mortgages, Ralsky’s operation instead pulled in millions of dollars through “pump and dump” schemes of thinly traded stocks in companies you’ve never heard of. Millions of e-mails would announce some hot new “Internet IPO!!!!!” just about to drop, and—amazingly—some people would want in on the action.
This might not sound like a good way to get rich, but the government’s court documents showed just how lucrative the practice could be. Consider the list of following payments that arrived from Hong Kong in just one month, July 2005:
July 5: $180,826.61
July 11: $211,595.76
July 14: $13,532
July 22: $780,295.98
July 26: $65,590.71
July 27: $424,963.73
July 27: $23,702
A scheme like this required a certain amount of sophistication, and Ralsky appears to have run it like a real business. He was the chief executive, and his son-in-law, Scott Bradley, was the chief financial officer. John Bown, CEO of network administration company GDC Layer One, was the “chief technology officer and network systems manager” for the spammers.
Full story at ArsTechnica
Could this be the end of Wikipedia
Fears are rising that Wikiepedia could be in trouble shortly as 49,000 volunteers have walked out this year. The free internet encyclopedia is one of the world’s most heavily used resources and it gets millions of hits a day.
The English language version of the site has suffered a huge lose of volunteer editors this year, according to a university study. The reason behind this is apparently based on the fact that there is an increased level of bureaucracy to help stop errors and misinformation.
The site gets around 325 million hits a month and has risen to the 5th most popular site in the world thanks to an addictive combination of huge data resources and user friendly interface. The research, by Felipe Ortega, at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, found that tens of thousands of Wikipedia editors were no longer contributing and they were not being replaced either.
Via Driver Heaven
CIA’s Lost Magic Manual Resurfaces
At the height of the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency paid $3,000 to renowned magician John Mulholland to write a manual on misdirection, concealment, and stagecraft. All known copies of the document — and a related paper, on conveying hidden signals — were believed to be destroyed in 1973. But recently, the manuals resurfaced, and have now been published as “The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception.” Topics include working a clandestine partner, slipping a pill into the drink of the unsuspecting, and “surreptitious removal of objects by women.”
This wasn’t the first time a magician worked for a western government. Harry Houdini snooped on the German and the Russian militiaries for Scotland Yard. English illusionist Jasper Maskelyne is reported to created dummy submarines and fake tanks to distract Rommel’s army during World War II. Some reports even credit him with employing flashing lights to “hide” the Suez Canal.
Full Article at Wired
Spam CAPTCHA
As you can see the Spam CAPTCHA on the comments had to be turned back on.
We sincerly apologies to anyone who dislikes it, but we are at the point where we have so much spam it’s taking a considerable amount of time to get through, therefore your comments are having to wait longer to be approved. A whopping 48.70% of all our comments are spam.
To give you an example, we had 465 spam comments yesterday alone. We have to sift through all these to find genuine comments which often get caught there.
So we hope it’s not too much trouble with the CAPTCHA back on, and we look forward to all your comments as usual 
Optical illusion fakery
There’s debate on whether the following is real or not. It’s part of a series of similar effects on YouTube. Why you would go to all the effort of faking an optical illusion is probably my question – however it may be a clever trick of the light. I’ll let you decide.
Hell is an invention of the church used to control people
The Church is in the “guilt producing, control business”, it has created this fiery place which has quite literally scared the hell out of a lot of people – it’s part of a control tactic. Hell is an invention of the church and people don’t need to be born again, they need to grow up.
Had I said this people would not be in the least surprised. But the above words are of Bishop John Shelby Spong – yes I said “bishop”. Does he just have it all wrong or does this demonstrate that the church actually has a huge spectrum of beliefs that also range from right to left?
TV Presenter On Death Row For Witchcraft
A man has been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for witchcraft because he makes predictions on television. Ali Sibat is not even a Saudi national. The Lebanese citizen was only visiting Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage when he was arrested in Medina last year. A court in the city condemned him as a witch on November 9.
The only evidence presented in court was reportedly the claim he appeared regularly on Lebanese satellite issuing general advice on life and making predictions about the future.
The case is causing outrage among human rights campaigners but has made little news elsewhere despite the ludicrous nature of the charges and the extraordinary severity of Sibat’s sentence.
Hollywood-tastic Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downy Jr
Not sure what you think of this trailer – but it’s seems quite clearly that Hollywood has got their hands on Sherlock Holmes and given him the US style makeover. Will you be going to see it?
Excellent new mind reading app from Richard Wiseman
There are a few iPhone magic apps out there. The problem is that they don’t really work all that well. The various card prediction apps are OK, but you can work it out in some cases and the result is at best a little deflating, even when you do manage to work out the cumbersome technique. However finally someone has released a rather fantastic prediction/mind reading app that genuinely triggers that “wow – how did you do that?” response.
That person is Mr Wiseman himself. What’s really good about this one is that your victim is the one who touches the iPhone – not you. In doing so it removes any sort of “method of picking up the phone” and you get a genuinely surprised response. One suggestion was that “it’s just voice recognition software” so we get them to signal the number by holding up fingers, or writing it down – it still works! – and any trick that works twice is a very good trick.
There’s a tiny learning curve and it’s flexible enough to tweak to your own delivery. With the piles of junk so readily available at the Apps store I had to admit I was initially sceptical (of course) – but we’re rather impressed with this one and at 59p it’s a friggin’ bargain.
If you manage to get some results and reactions on video – upload to you tube or send us a link. Please remember though – NO REVEALS! 
Available today from the Apple 
What is genius?
Psychologists still grind away (sometimes at each other) at explaining what genius is, and where it comes from. The effort, now weary and tendentious, was exciting in its earlier days. In 1920, Lewis Terman and Jessie Chase of Stanford University published a report called The Psychology, Biology and Pedagogy of Genius, summarising all the important new literature on the subject.
Those early 20th-century psychologists showed a collective genius for disagreeing about almost everything.
JCM Garnett, in a study called General Ability, Cleverness and Purpose, offered a formula for genius. Measure a person’s general ability; then measure their cleverness, then square both numbers and add them together, then take the square root. Genius.
We learn about CL Redfield, who “cites 571 specially selected pedigrees to prove his theory” that “rapid breeding inevitably leads to the production of inferior stock”, but that “inferior stock can be transformed into superior stock in 100 years, and into eminent men in 200 years”.
James G Kiernan wrote a monograph called Is Genius a Sport, a Neurosis, or a Child Potentiality Developed? Terman and Chase tell us that “Kiernan, after a description of the ability of various men of genius, arrives at the conclusion that genius is not a sport nor a neurosis”.
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