taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

Security: Chennai businessman ‘transformed’ into Al-Qaeda suspect (The Hindu):

‘It would seem the U.S. anti-terrorism set-up,’ one expert told , ‘is not very culturally attuned. After all, no one would set off a major terror alert just because a passenger called Mr. Jones or Mr. Smith figured on a passenger manifest.’

(via IP.)

Tags: al, alert, businessman, expert, hindu, passenger, security, terror

Humour: The null device reports a spam entitled, ‘julian haight funds terrorists b alqoswmw l lgng’.

Julian haight spamcops CEO is rumoured to have conections with Al-Quada, one of the most disruptive terrorist orginisations on earth. hes specialty is cyber terrorism. which disperses highly needed homeland security funds by rendering multi million dollar industrys unprofitable.

haights main motive is the perversion of American free enterprise.

Oh, the poor spammers! One comment quotes Samuel Johnson: ‘patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel’.

Also present is some lovely pictures of Carlton, with trams, greenery, grey skies, and that distinctive turn-of-the-century Aussie architectural style. A couple of years ago, I lived just around the corner in North Melbourne; looking at those photos, it seems like I could just pop out the front door and walk through it all on the way down to the Vic market. They thoroughly evoke day-to-day just-outside-the-CBD Melbourne.

Tags: al, alqoswmw, ceo, device, earth, haight, humour, lgng, null, spam, specialty

The null device reports a spam entitled, ‘julian haight funds terrorists b alqoswmw l lgng’.

Julian haight spamcops CEO is rumoured to have conections with Al-Quada, one of the most disruptive terrorist orginisations on earth. hes specialty is cyber terrorism. which disperses highly needed homeland security funds by rendering multi million dollar industrys unprofitable.

haights main motive is the perversion of American free enterprise.

Oh, the poor spammers! One comment quotes Samuel Johnson: ‘patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel’.

Also present is some lovely pictures of Carlton, with trams, greenery, grey skies, and that distinctive turn-of-the-century Aussie architectural style. A couple of years ago, I lived just around the corner in North Melbourne; looking at those photos, it seems like I could just pop out the front door and walk through it all on the way down to the Vic market. They thoroughly evoke day-to-day just-outside-the-CBD Melbourne.

Tags: al, alqoswmw, ceo, device, earth, haight, lgng, null, spam, specialty

Looks like Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf has a new job ;)

Tags: al, job, looks, muhammed

Ben Hammersley links to these two works of comedic genius: Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf’s new column in the Grauniad:

Earlier in the week I watched as joyous Iraqis celebrated our triumph by pulling down - with the help of defecting American soldiers - Baghdad’s only statue of actor Robert Donat as Mr Chips. I understand it was quite a good film, but we have no need of your imperialist icons now. Saddam has freed us from your oppressive rule, so we are saying goodbye to your Mr Chips. Ha! I have made myself laugh! I will not gloat further over this thrilling but predictable defeat which vindicates me so completely.

Also, a blog here. Brilliant.

Tags: actor, al, column, genius, grauniad, help, iraqis, statue, triumph, week

Yahoo: al-Jazeera website redirected:

The hacker was able to gain control of the domain name by asking domain
seller Network Solutions for the account password on official al-Jazeera
stationery, said an industry source speaking on condition of anonymity.
A spokesman for Network Solutions’ parent company declined to comment on
how the hacker was able to hijack the domain name, but said the company
had fixed the problem and was trying to track the impostor down.
‘We followed our procedures, in this particular instance someone was able
to get around those procedures,’ said Brian O’Shaughnessy, a spokesman
for Internet security firm VeriSign.

They fixed the problem? Surely this is exactly what happened with the sex.com domain several years ago?

Tags: al, company, domain, hacker, name, network, problem, spokesman, website, yahoo