Girls Teach Teen Cyber Gab to FBI Agents: For those investigative details, the FBI calls on Karen, Mary and Kristin -- Howard County eighth-graders and best friends. During the past year, the three have been teaching agents across the country how to communicate just like teenage girls, complete with written quizzes on celebrity gossip and clothing trends and assigned reading in Teen People and YM magazines. The first time the girls gave a quiz, all the agents failed. "They, like, don't know anything," said Mary, 14, giggling. [...] Probably the youngest instructors ever in an FBI classroom, the girls have become an invaluable help to Operation Innocent Images -- an initiative that tries to stop people from peddling child pornography or otherwise sexually exploiting children, FBI officials said. The Washington Post agreed to withhold the girls' last names to protect them from harassment on the Internet and elsewhere.

Software Piracy Said to Decline in 2002: Worldwide piracy of business software products like Microsoft Office declined slightly in 2002 because of better education and more aggressive tactics in stopping Internet piracy, software industry officials say. The downturn follows two years of increases blamed in part on the rise of distributing illegal copies online, according to a study released Tuesday by the Business Software Alliance.

Counteracting the Internet Rumor: According to a 2001 study conducted at Wake Forest University, only 3 of 24 Fortune 500 companies that have recently been the subjects of Internet rumors or hoaxes handled the rumors in a responsible manner.

Microsoft Time Warner? Is the recent truce between Microsoft and AOL Time Warner really that meaningful? An AOL-Microsoft Goliath? Don't Bet on It Their pact doesn't oblige AOL to use Microsoft's wares, nor would such a move establish an online standard for delivering music and movies [act.:] A big deal: A settlement between two old rivals may have great significance How Much Will Microsoft Help? The Breakup Scenario Steve Case's Second Act Ted's poor timing

Software On-Demand, Pricing by the Byte? On-demand is the next progression from the client-server era of computing to a more distributed model of offering utility-like data center computing services to corporate customers. The positioning for on-demand computing services, utility-style, also reflects the IT industry's profit margin shift to higher-value, value-added technology such as software and services. But are enterprise application vendors prepared to price their products by bits and bytes, or recognize revenue in dribs and drabs as customers order up spurts of software-enabled seats across an enterprise?

Police concerned over teen game addiction: Police are determined to deal with an alarming trend towards children becoming addicted to a violent internet game. An internet cafe has banned two 13-year-old "junkies", who, it was claimed, had broken into 40 taxis over six weeks to pay for habits which culminated in a four-day gaming binge. The 24-hour Wellington cafe, E-Joy, told police the boys had occasionally slept there after falling asleep playing Counter-Strike, one of the world's most popular online tactical war games.

A Brief History of the Future: the origins of the Internet

Spamology: In 1937, an Austin, Minn.-based company called Hormel Foods held a contest. Hormel's Spiced Ham, it seems, needed a new name - something "as distinctive as the taste," the company's official history goes. The winner was one Kenneth Daigneau, a Broadway actor and, ahem, brother to a Hormel executive. He took home $100 and gave the world Spam. Sixty years later, Hormel was trying to prevent the name of its product from leaking into the popular lexicon as a label for, of all things, electronic junk mail. In a 1997 letter, Hormel demanded that Sanford Wallace, who ran a huge bulk e-mailing business under domain names like spamford.com and spamford.net, "cease and desist from all further use of the trademark Spam." "You can more responsibly refer to your business as bulk e-mail or by similar longstanding terminology," the letter said. The spammer was unmoved. "If your client objects to the use of `spam' to refer to my client's business," Mr. Wallace's lawyers responded, "it's far too late to change the vocabulary of 25 million Internet users." Today, spamford.net and spamford.com are gone, but the lawyers were right.

Silicon Valley's top 100 paid among the largest companies based on their sales in 2002

Prime clicking time: At last, internet advertising that works but does not annoy

AOL Time Warner and Microsoft End a Bitter RivalryMicrosoft agreed to pay AOL Time Warner $750 million in a legal settlement yesterday that ends one of the most bitter rivalries in modern corporate history and commits the two companies to a sweeping program of business cooperation.

Video games boost visual skills: Playing video games could be good for your vision. A new study suggests that action games might help to rehabilitate visually impaired patients or train military personnel. Male undergraduates who played driving or shoot-em-up games such as Grand Theft Auto and Medal of Honor several times a week for at least six months beat non-gamers in lab vision tests, found Shawn Green and Daphne Bavelier of the University of Rochester in New York state. Game-players react to fast-moving objects more efficiently, explains Bavelier, and can track up to five objects at a time - 30% more than non-players. "They can process more information more quickly over time," she says. These skills might help people to drive more safely, Bavelier speculates. They may also enable pilots and air traffic controllers to monitor their video display units more effectively.

Online communities get real: Weblogs, e-mail and instant messaging are enabling people to maintain relationships and pass information in unexpected ways, say researchers. [...] New phenomena such as weblogs have allowed people to share their interest and passions with a wider audience but often provide a quite mundane and honest view of life. "Increasingly technologies allow people to find out about others in the real world and keep in touch with their day-to-day lives," said the report's author Will Davies.

Enter the Matrix games sells a million: Atari is claiming that Enter The Matrix has already sold a million units in the USA and Europe after only a week on sale, representing 25 per cent of the four million units which the company shipped to retail so far.

Most workers must remember six passwords or more: A recent SearchSecurity.com poll found that 77% of respondents had six or more passwords to remember for their jobs. About 23% had five or fewer passwords. But 20% had 15 or more passwords for their jobs. More than 200 took part in the online survey.

Search Privacy: An Issue? Relax. Yes, there are privacy issues when you do a search at Google. These are concerns at other search engines, too. Fear that you, personally, will be tracked isn't realistic for the vast majority of users. What exactly does Google know about you when you come to search? You needn't be worried - for the moment.

Anacom lança consulta pública sobre transposição de leis europeias: A Anacom (Autoridade Nacional das Comunicações) vai lançar uma consulta pública antes do final do mês sobre a transposição para a legislação portuguesa das novas directivas comunitárias sobre concorrência electrónica incluídas na chamada "Revisão 99". A consulta, ontem anunciada pelo director Mário Freitas, irá decorrer durante quatro semanas e destina-se a recolher as opiniões dos agentes de mercado sobre as opções já tomadas pela Anacom em relação ao processo de transposição, em matérias como a definição de mercados relevantes e avaliação do grau de concorrência nas telecomunicações em Portugal.

PGP Encryption Proves Powerful: Italian police have seized at least two Psion personal digital assistants from members of the Red Brigades terrorist organization. But the major investigative breakthrough they were hoping for as a result of the information contained on the devices has failed to materialize--thwarted by encryption software used by the left-wing revolutionaries. Failure to crack the code, despite the reported assistance of U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation computer experts, puts a spotlight on the controversy over the wide availability of powerful encryption tools. [...] The software separating the investigators from a potentially invaluable mine of information about the shadowy terrorist group, which destabilized Italy during the 1970s and 1980s and revived its practice of political assassination four years ago after a decade of quiescence, was PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), the Rome daily La Repubblica reported. So far the system has defied all efforts to penetrate it, the paper said.

StrokeIt: an advanced mouse gesture recognition engine and command processor

Parents fear perils of media, poll shows: An overwhelming majority of parents believe that unsuitable TV, movies, video games and contemporary music lead to violent, anti-social behavior and sex at younger ages, according to a national survey released Wednesday. The survey of 1,000 parents by Common Sense Media, a new San Francisco group, also found that those parents want more information about what their kids are listening to and watching.

Craig Crossman's Computer America

Do You Think The INTERNET Is Complex? According to recent surveys and projections by CyberAtlas, the averaged results of two different studies puts the 2002 worldwide Internet population at 618 million users, which is projected to rise to 827 million users in 2004 (up from 27.5 million users in 1994. According to the CIA World Fact Book, there are now approximately 12,000 ISPs (Internet Service Providers) providing access to the Internet, worldwide.

From PlayStation to Supercomputer for $50,000: As perhaps the clearest evidence yet of the computing power of sophisticated but inexpensive video-game consoles, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has assembled a supercomputer from an army of Sony PlayStation 2's.

AIP acusa telemóveis de concertação de preços: A Associação Industrial Portuguesa (AIP) está preocupada com o aumento das tarifas no sector das telecomunicações, que considera uma acção concertada das três operadoras móveis. Na nota mensal da direcção da AIP sobre a conjuntura, a associação diz que vê "com preocupação a evolução no sector das telecomunicações, designadamente aquilo que parece ser um aumento concertado das tarifas das três operadoras". "Nesta ordem de razões, a AIP não vê com bons olhos novas consolidações ao nível dos operadores (quer na rede fixa quer na rede móvel)", pode ler-se no documento. [Não é a isto que se chama "cartelização"?...]

Disposable DVDs Go to the Dumps: Environmentalists are steamed about one movie studio's latest attempt to market home movies to the public. On Friday, Flexplay and Buena Vista Home Entertainment, a division of Disney, announced they will sell DVDs of popular movies that, once opened, can be viewed for 48 hours, then tossed in the trash.

Spinning around: Experts say information overload is a serious problem in many companies, adding to stress levels and resulting in a downturn in productivity

E porque recebi hoje um igualzinho (não, não o abri...): Palyh Worm Continues Its Assault: Any e-mail arriving from an address like 'support@microsoft.com' containing an attachment should look like a huge billboard reading 'I am a virus' to every computer user

Italia en alerta por "fraude celular": Las autoridades italianas advirtieron sobre el potencial uso fraudulento de los teléfonos celulares de tercera generación en las elecciones municipales y provinciales que se celebrarán el 25 de mayo. Se teme que la mafia intente recurrir a lo último en tecnología de comunicación móvil para procurar influir en el resultado de la votación. Los nuevos aparatos pueden transmitir video en directo, por lo que hay temor de que algunos electores sean presionados para que voten por un candidato en particular y que además certifiquen "en vivo" sus actos dentro del puesto de votación.

Broadband Growth Seen Slowing: A new study shows the high-octane pace of broadband adoption in the United States could be shifting into a lower gear. For the most part, America's most experienced Internet users already have signed up for home broadband service. And among the remaining Web junkies who haven't, the chief reason isn't a lack of interest, but the lack of availability in their neighborhoods.

Extent of UK snooping revealed: Officials in the UK are routinely demanding huge quantities of information about what people do online and who they call, say privacy experts. Police and other officials are making around a million requests for access to data held by net and telephone companies each year, according to figures compiled from the government, legal experts and the internet industry. [...] But a Home Office spokesman disputed the figures, telling BBC News Online it estimated that the number of requests were half that suggested.

U.S. Agency Cracks Down on Internet Crime: More than 130 people and $17 million have been seized nationwide in operations by the FBI and other agencies to stop cybercrime. The Justice Department dubbed the effort "Operation E-con," a collection of separate investigations over the past five months targeting investment scams, sales of stolen software, online banking fraud -- even a purported Russian marriage service. [...] Officials estimated the collective losses across more than 90 investigations at $176 million, affecting 89,000 victims.

Matrix Sequel Has Hacker Cred: The average American moviegoer taking in the Matrix Reloaded this weekend will likely be wowed by the elaborate action sequences and dazzling special effects. But hackers who've seen the blockbuster are crediting it with a more subtle cinematic milestone: it's the first major motion picture to accurately portray a hack. That's right: Trinity uses a 'sploit.

Internet is dying: What's dying is the idea that the Internet would be a tool of universal liberation, and the argument that "freedom" in itself is a justification for this information pollution. It's probably reached a tipping point: the signal to noise ratio is now too low.

Verisign granted DNS lookup patent: The patent protects the act of performing several look-ups at once, or "performing a multitude of searches simultaneously, transparent to the user.

Social Scientist Sherry Turkle: A Psychologist in Cyberspace [& robotics with emotion]

Privacy Laws: Not the Answer? Surfers need to take charge of their own security, experts say.

The Other Kind of Tracks: Every time you use your computer, especially if you are on the Internet, you are creating numerous records of your activities that can be tapped by another person without much technical skill. For innocent reasons, both the Windows and Mac operating systems, as well as their core applications, create all sorts of logs, trails and lists of activities you might consider private.

Self-Repairing Computers: By embracing the inevitability of system failures, recovery-oriented computing returns service faster

Fraud Bust for 'Buffalo Spammer': The man known as the "Buffalo Spammer," who allegedly has sent 825 million unwanted e-mails, has been arrested and arraigned

What can Fizzer teach us? The fact Fizzer targeted KaZaA bears out the fears of the anti-virus community who have identified file-sharing services and instant messaging as two areas where viruses look set to boom as virus writers attempt to get back in touch with end users.

How Microsoft Warded Off Rival: The Microsoft campaign against Linux raises questions about how much its aggressive, take-no-prisoners corporate culture has changed, despite having gone through a lengthy, reputation-tarnishing court battle in the United States that resulted in Microsoft's being found to have repeatedly violated antitrust laws.

Search engines make us dumb: They may add huge value in facilitating rapid and effective retrieval of known information, but to put our faith in search engines ultimately disempowers us.

Parents Support Kids Playing Video Games: new research showed most parents view their children's game playing as positive and nearly all monitor what they buy. Parents say they are with their children when games are purchased nearly 90 percent of the time, according to the survey conducted on behalf of the Interactive Digital Software Association.

Banda larga chumbada no Parlamento: O projecto de lei do Bloco de Esquerda (BE) sobre acesso à Internet em banda larga (cabo ou ADSL) em todo o país a um preço baixo deverá ser chumbado hoje na votação na especialidade no Parlamento. O porta-voz do BE, Daniel Oliveira, disse à Lusa que lamenta que o Governo encare a questão da banda larga apenas como um "acesso à Internet". "Algumas indústrias de ponta não podem funcionar sem banda larga, requisito fundamental para a transmissão de grandes quantidades de informação, por isso fogem do interior do país", disse.

[act.:] Microsoft Reverses Position: Internet Toilet No Hoax After All Microsoft: Internet potty just a hoax: "This iLoo release came out of the U.K. office and was not a Microsoft-sanctioned communication, and we apologize for any confusion or offense it may have caused," Microsoft spokeswoman Bridgitt Arnold said late last night. Did Microsoft "borrow" the iLoo concept?: Andrew Cubitt claims that Microsoft "borrowed" his concept of surf while you sit a fair while after he'd perfected his own device – which also has the same name – the iLoo.

Banks suffer increased hack attacks: Hack attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with over a third of banks and financial services companies reporting a security breach in the last year, according to a new survey. Hacking 2003: The new agenda: today we're seeing a far more dangerous hacker attack--the targeted attack. Targeted attacks are carried out by highly skilled hackers motivated by financial gain and armed with the expertise to do serious damage.

Sony to release handheld game player: The PSP will have a screen capable of showing 3D images, stereo sound, USB 2.0 connectivity and a custom processor built on cutting-edge 90-nanometer chipmaking technology. The device will also use a new media format. The UMD disc is an optical disc about half the size of a DVD or CD and capable of holding 1.8GB of data.

Portugal smart enough to attract Microsoft phone software: Portugal has become the second European market to introduce so-called ‘smart phones’, a clever marketing appellation that describes mobiles using Microsoft’s Windows CE 3.0 software. The project with Microsoft is a joint initiative by state energy company Galpenergia and TMN, Portugal Telecom’s mobile subsidiary. It follows Orange launching the device in France late last year.

Apple Tweaks Microsoft Over a New Computer: A computer designed by Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard that has features similar to those used in Apple models.

Log on and enter the Matrix: With the push of a button, the computer game Enter The Matrix was launched in Sydney last night, marking the final marketing frenzy for one of this year's most anticipated films. The game is the first of its kind to be completely integrated with a film. It was written by Matrix creators Andy and Larry Wachowski, features the film's stars and was made in Sydney while The Matrix Reloaded and the final movie in the series, The Matrix Revolutions, were being filmed.

Irish schools stop truants with text messages: Two Irish schools are testing a new scheme using modern mobile-phone technology to take the temptation out of playing truant. Under the scheme, a database records the names of absent students each day and automatically sends out a text message to parents notifying them if their child missed roll-call.

Balancing Data Needs And Privacy

Error 404

At 102, she's addicted to e-mail

Xbox Live update at E3: Rumours abound that Microsoft is set to announce a major update to its Xbox Live kit at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Microsoft is keeping mum, but has admitted to a few "groundbreaking announcements" at the most important games show of the year.

Microsoft learned from open source: Microsoft’s global director of product security, George Stathakopoulos, has told ZDNet Australia that the software giant has learned security lessons from the wider software community.

Telco TV (Take 2): Cable television companies are offering phone service. Can the phone companies finally fight back with video?

A dotcom revival? A few surviving internet stocks are even enjoying a second boom [...] Have investors finally found the internet’s real pot of gold? Perhaps, but they would do well to remember what happened after the railway fever of the 19th century: the industry had to endure three busts before investors made any serious money.

Hackers and Painters

Atari Rises From Infogrames: Franco-American video game publisher Infogrames Inc., reaching back into gaming history, said on Wednesday it would change its name to Atari Inc. in an effort to boost its profile with consumers.

South Korean Group Sues Microsoft Over Slammer: In a sign of users' increasing frustration with the security shortcomings of many software applications, a civic group in South Korea has made good on their threat to file a lawsuit against Microsoft Corp.'s Korean subsidiary, a Korean ISP and the country's Information Ministry. The suit is the direct result of the havoc caused by the SQL Slammer worm in January.

Microsoft Opens Hardware, Software Portal: Microsoft has grouped all its online resources for hardware and driver software makers in a new portal site

Radio ID chips to come with kill switch: Manufacturers and a key industry group expect to introduce a kill switch for controversial radio frequency identification tags before the inventory-tracking chips are shipped in products to retail shelves.

Excited by 3G? Wait for 4G: Third-generation mobile technology has arrived, duly accompanied by a barrage of hype. But the industry is already casting its eyes forward to the next big thing - 4G.

Meet the man who invented video games: Long before the days of PlayStation and Xbox, there was the Odyssey. In 1972, Sanders Associates (and, by default, [Ralph] Baer) were working with Maganavox to create the first in-home gaming console. The Odyssey sold 100,000 units at $100 each that year.

'Rent-a-hacker' debate gets heated: UK businesses are divided over whether to open their offices to hackers. Would you 'hire a thief to catch a thief'?

Impress friends, buy diamond cell phone

Google indicateur: Google' World

Ruddock fury over Woomera computer game: It's a dose of virtual reality that the Immigration Minister could probably do without: a computer game in which players try to escape from Australian detention centres has received $25,000 in federal funding.

Video-Game Merchants Under Fire: In an effort to protect kids from violent imagery and the rest of us from violent kids, the state of Washington is prepared to make it illegal for stores to give youngsters access to interactive images of mayhem. A bill that restricts the sale or rental of some violent video and computer games to adults-only customers passed unanimously in both the state House and Senate.

Blindsided by Bandwidth Fees, Online Barkers Think Twice: Giving things away, even digitally, can cost a lot. I hadn't realized just how much until I turned on my computer one day last month and discovered that I might owe $15,000 to an Internet company. Two days earlier, I had started giving away the electronic edition of Real World Adobe GoLive 6, a book I wrote in March 2002 with Jeff Carlson about a Web publishing tool.

Moore's law 'is biggest threat to privacy': Phil Zimmermann, the man who created the PGP encryption product, believes that Moore's Law and surveillance cameras make for a particularly dangerous cocktail "The human population does not double every 18 months but its ability to use computers to keep track of us does," he said, referring to what he sees as the threat to privacy from the increased use of surveillance cameras. "You can't encrypt your face."

A New Way to Catch a Hacker: For a computer security professional, Lance Spitzner has an unusual goal: He wants ill-intentioned hackers to steal more Social Security numbers and medical records.

Microsoft's plug-and-play biometrics: AuthenTec, a maker of fingerprint-recognition sensors, announced on Monday that it had signed a deal with Microsoft to integrate software support for biometrics into the Windows operating system.

Six Technologies That Will Change the World: Imagine robots that can read your mood and ink-jet printers that can crank out transplantable hearts. The visionaries you are about to meet have not only imagined these things - they're hard at work building them. [...] - God's Ink Jet - Robots You Can Relate To - The Plane That Does Hong Kong and Back in a Day - All-Day Portable Power - Electronic Paper - A Swarm of Sensors

Off the hype meter: In a Wall Street Journal interview, Ellison was quoted saying, "We became the largest industry in the world by selling things that people didn't want to buy." That's because the technology industry has elevated hype to an art form.

Two-thirds of spam contains falsehoods: Internet users skeptical of junk e-mails promising easy money, miracle cures and dream dates are right to be wary: The government says two-thirds of the "spam" messages clogging online mailboxes probably are false in some way.

Turning Points in Technology

Expert Users Move Away from Google: 24% of those surveyed indicated they have stopped using Google. Nearly half of the Expert users identify that they have stopped using Google and a percentage of Intermediate Users. And what they now use as their starting point for information are RSS search tools, link surfing and News Reader Subscriptions.

High-definition DVD on the way: Beyond better video, HD-DVD discs may hold seven-channel soundtracks and more interactive bonuses, such as automatic software that, through a Net-linked home entertainment server, could connect online for additional language soundtracks and live chats with filmmakers and actors.

Patents Go Global: A single global patent system could simplify the international patent process. Will the United States sign on?

Webby Awards ceremony canceled: The poor economy and fears about traveling were blamed for the cancellation of the seventh annual ceremony, which was scheduled for June 5 in San Francisco. Instead, the winners will be announced on the Internet.

Does IT Really Make Us Productive? It's taken for granted, just like Moore's Law: Technology makes people more productive. But researchers are going to test that notion.

Futurist Fears End of Innovation: Author Howard Rheingold believes the freedom of technologists to innovate is under attack as never before.[...] "Our freedom to innovate is not necessarily going to be as free as it was in the pre-Internet era," he cautioned. "We are at a pivotal point in the history of technology and a lot of assumptions should be questioned."

Online, All the Time, an All-Seeing Surveillance System: [The] ease with which the high-tech surveillance cameras can be set up and used worries people who are concerned about the invasion of privacy. The Washington Police Department came under fire for a system it purchased from Axis that enables it to monitor activities through a network of cameras mounted at busy intersections, in the subway system and at tourist sites like the National Mall. The system, which is activated during heightened terror alerts, allows the authorities to manipulate the cameras so they can, for instance, pan and zoom in on activity they consider suspicious. The remote access also means that officers can view images on computer monitors installed in squad cars.

Getting realistic in the war on hackers: Give up on the notion that computer security can be improved by putting more people in prison

Microsoft reportedly seeking to buy Sega

Is That a Computer in Your Pants? Cyberculture chronicler Howard Rheingold on smart mobs, smart environments, and smart choices in an age of connectivity

How to Make Money on the Net: The second Internet boom is quietly taking shape -- and this one looks like it's going to last. Here's how six innovative businesses learned from the past and have begun to make the Web work for them.

Inside the Soul of the Web: 24 hours watching the world look for answers at Google.

Want to Beat the Enemy? Win the Information War: Bruce Berkowitz, a noted analyst at the RAND Corporation and the Hoover Institution at Stanford, has produced a readable and well-informed study of information technology and its implications for future warfare. Even though he wrote his book just before the conflict in Iraq, his observations about technology and its role in future warfare have not been radically altered by the outcome of the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Synapse Media Player 1.01: The Brain knows what you want and how you want it. It knows when you want it and it's going to give it to you. You've got to hear this.

Blogger New: Dano Rollout Plan

Puppet Animation

Office workers give away passwords for a cheap pen: If anything, people are even more lax about security than they were a year ago, the survey found. Nine in ten (90 per cent) of office workers at London's Waterloo Station gave away their computer password for a cheap pen, compared with 65 per cent last year.

Should You Hire a Hacker? can reformed hackers be trusted to guard the corporate henhouse?

Organised crime on the internet: hidden dangers: Management perceives major threats from viruses and teenage hackers. But bigger threats come from organised crime involving fraud and commercial espionage

Do you suffer from PPMT? People's anxieties and fears over e-mail etiquette and the inescapable phenomenon of digital blunders has given rise to a new term – pre and post mail tension (PPMT).

Trends in the Evolution of the Public Web: 1998 - 2002: Although the Web is still a work in progress, it has accumulated enough of a history to permit meaningful analysis of the trends characterizing its evolution. The Web's relatively brief history has been steeped in predictions about the direction of its future development, as well as the role it will ultimately play as a communications medium for information in digital form. In light of the persistent uncertainty that attends the maturation of the Web, it is useful to examine some of the Web's key trends to date, in order both to mark the current status of the Web's progression and to inform new predictions about future developments. This article examines three key trends in the development of the public Web - size and growth, internationalization, and metadata usage

Da Vinci: Father of Cryptography? Dan Brown's latest novel, The Da Vinci Code, published by Doubleday Books, is about the famous Renaissance artist and the oblique references to the occult contained in his equally famous paintings. It's also about ancient secret societies, modern forensics, science and engineering, and the history of religion. Most of all The Da Vinci Code is about the history of encryption -- the many methods developed over time to keep private information from prying eyes.