SURVENT

On May 23, 2007 two of the idiots involved in an attempt to sell Coke's secrets to Pepsi were sentenced for conspiring to steal and sell trade secrets. Per a press release on the DOJ website:

[Joya] Williams was sentenced to eight years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $40,000 in restitution. Dimson was sentenced to five years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release, and also ordered to pay $40,000 in restitution. Dimson pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge on Oct. 23, 2006. After a seven-day jury trial, Williams was convicted of these charges on Feb. 2, 2007. Another co-defendant in the case, Edmund Duhaney, 43, of Decatur, Ga., will be sentenced at a later date.

I guess it is nice to know that there is a corporation in the world that still has a conscience. Thanks for turning in these idiots, Pepsi - I am a Coke drinker and would hate to drink a Coke out of a Pepsi can!

Posted by Lucent at 01:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, it looks like Randall Raar has been found guilty for all 21 charges brought against him back in June 2006. Obviously there was enough evidence to prove that the child pornography on his computer was his and that he was guilty of the other charges. Per the Attorney General's website yesterday:

Attorney General Mike Cox today announced today that a Wayne County jury has convicted Randall Raar, 59, of Lincoln Park on all 21 felony counts brought against him in a case dealing mainly with child pornography.

"I will bring the full power of the law to bear upon those who engage in the possession of child pornography," Cox said. "The child porn industry exists only to serve the perverted appetite of those who crave this despicable material."

Continue reading "Randall Raar Found Guilty On 21 Counts Related To Child Pornography" »

Posted by Lucent at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I see there have been a number of people checking out my post about Orin Andrew Kennedy, the school teacher from Ypsilanti, Michigan who was recently busted for solicitation of a minor via the internet. Do any of you happen to know this man personally? Perhaps a friend, colleague or student of Kennedy's may be visiting my site. If so, please leave a comment, or drop me an e-mail, about your take on the situation and your reaction. Also interested in what those he knows think about him. Was this a shock to everyone as these cases usually are? What was he like to work with or interact with? Hope to hear from some of you. Thank you to everyone for stopping by and reading my blog!

Posted by Lucent at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Orin Andrew Kennedy was busted this week for some supposed inappropriate online communications with what he thought was a teenage girl. I was looking for some information on another alleged sexual predator named Randall Raar and came across this story on the website of Michigan's Attorney General, Mike Cox - here is a link to that site. Per the article:

Attorney General investigators arrested Kennedy, 27, this morning. The defendant is alleged to have been chatting online with who he thought was a 14-year-old girl that he met in a chatroom. Kennedy allegedly engaged in graphic sexual conversation with an undercover agent and propositioned the agent, who was posing as the 14-year-old girl. The defendant also asked the agent to watch a sexually explicit act. Kennedy was arrested at his home in Ypsilanti where he is alleged to live. Attorney General investigators also seized a laptop computer and webcam from his home.

Randall Raar was living in Ypsilanti when he allegedly committed crimes against a young woman years ago and was charged with those crimes back in June 2006. Seems strange to me that there are two cases of this type of crime coming out of Ypsi so close together and having happened so many years apart. Ypsilanti is a small town and it is creepy to me to know that this type of individual has been living there in one for or another for years. I wonder if Orin Kennedy and Raar knew each other? I was going to offer a possible speculation but will not.

How many more pedophiles are there in Ypsilanti that we do not know about? In a past post I did, there is a link to the Sex Offender Registry where you can see how many live in Ypsilanti that are registered offenders with the State. I can save you the time and tell you the service shows 232 offenders found - see the map below. You can also use this to check out who is living in or around your neighborhood. It is something good to be informed about.

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Also, there is also a short article on 7 Action News out of Plymouth, MI about this recent arrest. They also have a copy of the article from the Attorney General posted. I usually check out this news site for information related to things I hear going on over in the Detroit area as they are usually pretty much in the know, so check them out.

In the article posted on the Attorney General's website is this quote:

"Predators continue to lurk on the Internet, trying to approach minors," said Cox. "My office will not let up in its pursuit to track down and prosecute these predators who seek to harm Michigan's children." Kudos to Mr. Cox and the efforts of he and his staff. This is a serious issue that it is nice to see someone taking the task to address. Thank you and keep up the good work folks!

Posted by Lucent at 02:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a tragic story from India. The article on CNN is short, so I am quoting the whole thing below:

COCHIN, India (AP) -- A river boat carrying children on a school trip capsized in southern India on Tuesday, and at least 18 children and four teachers drowned, a local official said. Sixteen children were missing as night fell.

Three boats were carrying more than 100 students and staff down the Periyar River in the Thattekkad bird sanctuary when one boat capsized, said Mohammad Haneesh, a top official of the district. All the children were younger than 11.

As darkness fell, 16 children were still missing, and 10 had been admitted to a local hospital, he said.

It was not clear how many children were in the boat that capsized.

The Thattekkad sanctuary is about 25 miles east of Cochin, the commercial hub of the southern state of Kerala.

The United States has laws about all children on boats being required to wear life jackets for just this reason. If there had been life jackets on these kids, and I am assuming there were not due to the number of drown kids, perhaps many of them would still be alive. Children rely on adults to take the necessary actions to protect them and it seem like to many times in society lately, adults are failing the children. Accidents happen and safety devices are made for a reason. Please make sure if you are on a boat with children that they have the proper safety equipment on just in case. Sad, simply sad.

Posted by Lucent at 01:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It appears that there is a bug in software programmed prior to 2005 that is used to automatically advance the time in the program, i.e. calendar programs.

For three weeks this March and April, Microsoft Corp. warns that users of its calendar programs "should view any appointments ... as suspect until they communicate with all meeting invitees."

...it's a potential problem in any software that was programmed before a 2005 law decreed that daylight-saving time would start three weeks earlier and end one week later, beginning this year. Congress decided that more early evening daylight would translate into energy savings.

Software created earlier is set to automatically advance its timekeeping by one hour on the first Sunday in April, not the second Sunday in March (that's March 11 this year). [CNN]

It sounds like many things could get messed up if the IT folks at companies are not prepared for this. The issue should mainly be inconvenience to the average consumre, but it could cost companies a lot of money.

"We've been aware of the DST changes since late last year. But the tools and patches keep changing, or weren't available, which made it difficult to create a solid plan," said Warren Byle, a systems engineer at an insurance company. "This change might go smoothly for those who are prepared, but I think it will be the 'Y2K that wasn't' for the rest."

The move could impact time-sensitive applications other than calendaring, such as those that process sales orders or keep track of time cards. Gartner, for example, says the bug could lead to incorrect arrival and departure times in the travel industry and result in errors in bank transactions, causing late payments. In addition, trading applications might execute purchases and sales at the wrong time, and cell phone-billing software could charge peak rates at off-peak hours. [CNet News]

A little further down the article on CNet News:

Microsoft and other software makers have created patches to make their products ready for the switch and have filled Web pages with tips for customers. IT pros and consumers alike have to apply those updates. Otherwise, they will have to deal with electronic clocks that may be off by an hour, for three weeks starting March 11 and again for a week in the fall, when they go back on November 4 instead of October 28.

Dealing with the patches should be straightforward for most consumers. Microsoft released a daylight-saving fix for Windows XP Service Pack 2 on Tuesday, and it is pushing the patch out through the Automatic Updates feature in the operating system. An update is also available for Windows-based cell phones. However, the recently launched Windows Vista doesn't need a patch.

For businesses, getting ready is a different story. It isn't as straightforward to apply updates to Windows PCs and phones in a corporate environment, because of potential compatibility woes. Moreover, there are many other fixes that need to be applied, not just from Microsoft, but also from Oracle, IBM, Red Hat, Hewlett-Packard and other software suppliers.

Companies using Microsoft's Exchange for e-mail, for example, face a real patch challenge. Microsoft has updates for the Outlook and Entourage mail clients, and for Windows Server and Exchange Server--all of which need to be applied in a specific order and in rapid succession. [CNet News]

Just beware that there may be some confusion coming up with regard to meetings, billings and other things that may be affected by this issue. I suggest everyone follows the links in this post that have to do with a system you are operating and get the patch installed. If there is no link of relevance to your system needs, do a search on the net and you will find lots of information.

Here are some links to other posting about this issue by bloggers:

Techie Diva has some links to other software upgrades you may find useful.

BLOG by zaiss Sam Zaiss posts about a first-hand experience with the issue (I found this post via a link from Markus Weickenmeier's blog).

Firehouse has a post with the full AP story included if interested.

Posted by Lucent at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I noticed an article from a week ago on CNN about the Mooninite sign promotion that went completely wrong for TBS and the company they hired to do the promotion. According to the article:

Turner Broadcasting System and Interference Inc. have agreed to pay $2 million to make amends for last Wednesday's guerrilla marketing scheme that led to a bomb scare in Boston, the Massachusetts attorney general said Monday.

The settlement included about $1 million to cities and state agencies for their response and another $1 million in goodwill funding.

Boston will get more than $484,590.

That is a pretty large chunk of change to have to shell out over this, but as I stated in my previous post, the exposure they have received is well worth the $2 million setllement. Now everyone all over the world knows the name of the cartoon that was being promoted as well as the name of one of the characters. While the promotion went wrong, the outcome is was still successful. Will they do it again? Probably not.

I did find the following part of the article interesting:

"Last week's events caused a major disruption in the greater Boston area on many levels -- crippling public transportation, causing serious traffic problems, negatively affecting local businesses, and perhaps most significantly, costing Boston and surrounding communities thousands of dollars," Attorney General Martha Coakley said in a written statement.

"It is our hope that these funds will cover not only the expenses incurred by the many agencies who participated in the response and investigation of the devices discovered in the Boston area last Wednesday, but they will also enable our communities to enhance homeland security, or to pursue other important community initiatives."

Interesting how Boston will get money out of this to cover the services that were utilized in the effort to determine if these were bombs - which it was great that the city took the measures they did - but where is the money for the "negatively affected local businesses"? It is great that the settlement also pays for the expenses that were incurred by other agencies who were involved so that we the taxpayers do not get stuck with the bill. However, Boston seems to have over reacted to the situation and in doing so they have been able to squeeze out an additional $1 million for "goodwill funds" as the article continues to state:

The approximately $1,000,000 in "goodwill funds" will be divided among the involved agencies for use by programs that support homeland security, community education and awareness, emergency response preparedness, training and equipment, or other appropriate community security and safety education.

One million dollars will not go all that far when shared by as many agencies as were involved, so wh