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Nigerian Slain Over E-Mail Scam: A notorious e-mail scam has resulted in the murder of a Nigerian diplomat in the Czech Republic. Fifty-year-old Michael Lekara Wayid, Nigeria's consul in the Czech Republic, was shot dead by an unidentified 72-year-old Czech at the Nigerian Embassy in Prague on Wednesday. According to police reports, the suspect was a victim of the 419 scam, a thriving industry that employs thousands of people around the world.

"Modders" breathe new life into video games: As Microsoft was finishing a new game that lets players crossbreed animals - as in elephants with sharks - it gave a select group of programmers an opportunity to tinker with the product. By the time "Impossible Creatures" came out a month later, the tinkerers, called "modders," had already developed unofficial variants that go beyond the basic game - and released them as free downloads on the Internet.

Designed for life: why gadgets in the real world are still so hard to use, and why computers need emotions

Schoolgirl turns tables on email credit card fraudster: A Nottingham schoolgirl managed to turn the tables on a cracker who'd pinched her father's credit card details by tricking him into revealing his identity online. This week Nottinghamshire police praised Danielle Athi for helping them track down a teenager computer criminal who'd plundered an estimated £2,000 through Internet-related credit card fraud. [...] The story begins back in August 2000 when Edgar [AKA Gafferboy] first made contact with Danielle, then only 12, in an Internet chat room. The pair exchanged emails before Gafferboy sent young Danielle a "photo" of himself by email. In fact the email contained a Trojan horse virus, which compromised the Athi family's home computer. A month later, Danielle's father Ravi was shocked to receive a bank statement containing a number of fraudulent transactions.

Weapons That Disable Circuitry May Get First Use in IraqAs the United States readies for a possible conflict in Iraq, many of the star weapons from the Persian Gulf war of 1991 are back and deadlier than ever. The smart bombs are smarter. The stealth planes are sneakier. Even the ground troops are better equipped than they were a dozen years ago. Yet according to military experts, the biggest technical revelation of another war in the region may not be improvements to old systems but rather a new category of firepower known as directed-energy weapons. Think invisible lasers, using high-powered microwaves and other sorts of radiation rather than the pulses of visible light common in science fiction. These new systems, which have been under development in countries including Britain, China, Russia and the United States for at least a decade, are not designed to kill people. Conventional bombs, guns and artillery can take care of that.

DMCA Blocks Tech Progress: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is threatening innovation in Silicon Valley, and it's time for businesses and consumers to mobilize to change the law.

Net blocking threatens legitimate sites: Government efforts to block offensive Web sites are technically problematic and legally worrisome, a new study says.

Print from your cell phone: Nokia on Tuesday said it’s working with Hewlett-Packard to let customers print content from their cell phones. Nokia, which sells about 39 percent of the world’s cell phones, plans to add printing capabilities to its Series 60 cell phones, including more advanced wireless devices like the handset maker’s n-Gage gaming phone.

For Sale: A Piece of Mac History: If you're in the market for one of the most collectible vintage computers, you could get lucky this weekend. An extremely rare Apple I - one of only about 30 still in circulation - will be auctioned on the Vintage Computer Festival website.

Child Porn Hidden on Corporate Networks: ''If you've got a big company system, I can almost guarantee that you have child pornography on it,'' says Kenneth Citarella, deputy chief of investigations with the Westchester County District Attorney's Office. ''It's there somewhere.''

Geeks Without Borders: And now for something that seems completely different: Visit the Web site for the law firm of Landau, Luckman, and Lake, along with this informative tour of New River University. Both seem like reputable outfits, but in fact they are fake sites, created as launching pads for an online scavenger hunt that goes by the name L3.

Over 5 million Visa/MasterCard accounts hacked into: More than five million Visa and MasterCard accounts throughout the nation were accessed after the computer system at a third party processor was hacked into, according to representatives for the card associations.

Danger of Cyberwarfare? While the government is attempting to create a cyberoffensive capability (whether good or bad), individuals certainly should not try to take matters into their own hands as "hacker patriots." It is difficult to envision how intentionally launched cyberattacks would not result in potential criminal and civil liability under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act - a statute that was enacted in 1986 and that has been amended over time to address a wide range of nefarious computer crimes.

Man charged with crashing employer's computer site: A Pleasant Grove man has been charged with bringing down his former employer's entire computer system in what a prosecutor called a ''crime of the future.''

The Hot Rod Meets the Microchip: If the color of the computer industry is the beige of its generic hardware, Miami-based PC maker Alienware Corp.'s hue must be green or purple -- make that "cyborg green" or "plasma purple." Price wars are the usual tactic for winning sales in the PC business, but Alex Aguila, 35, and Nelson Gonzalez, 37, Alienware's president and chief executive, respectively, are barreling along in the opposite direction, selling pricey, tricked-out, decidedly non-beige PCs to avid computer gamers.

Closer to a national ID plan? A little-known company called EagleCheck is hoping to provide a standardized identity check technique that governments and corporations will use to verify that you are who you claim to be.

New Privacy Menace: Cell Phones? "If someone is able to take a picture of a show, then simulate the picture on the Internet - it may very well constitute an infringement to copyright laws," [Cedric Laurant, policy counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center] said. "The owner of the premises might well consider a ban on the cell phone, depending on what he considers most important - the patron's right to use the cell phone on the premises or the interests of intellectual property owners."

The Spread of the Sapphire/Slammer Worm: The Sapphire Worm was the fastest computer worm in history. As it began spreading throughout the Internet, it doubled in size every 8.5 seconds. It infected more than 90 percent of vulnerable hosts within 10 minutes.

Bush unveils final cybersecurity plan: The policy statement, called the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, calls for the government to work with private industry to create an emergency response system to cyberattacks and to reduce the nation's vulnerability to such threats.