Wednesday, February 05, 2003

Critics target data in 'More Guns, Less Crime', by Robert Stacy McCain, Washington Times. A scholar whose research supports private gun ownership has come under fire from critics who question whether he actually conducted a 1997 survey cited in his work. Scholar Invents Fan To Answer His Critics, by Richard Morin, Washington Post. Mary Rosh thinks the world of John R. Lott Jr., the controversial American Enterprise Institute scholar whose book "More Guns, Less Crime" caused such a stir a few years ago. In postings on Web sites in this country and abroad, Rosh has tirelessly defended Lott against his harshest critics. He is a meticulous researcher, she's repeatedly told those who say otherwise. He's not driven by the ideology of the left or the right. Rosh has even summoned memories of the classes she took from Lott a decade ago to illustrate Lott's probity and academic gifts. I have to say that he was the best professor I ever had, Rosh gushed in one Internet posting. Indeed, Mary Rosh and John Lott agree about nearly everything. Well they should, because Mary Rosh is John Lott -- or at least that's the pseudonym he's used for three years to defend himself against his critics in online debates, Lott acknowledged this week. . . . Moreover, the AEI resident scholar acknowledged on Friday that he permitted his 13-year-old son to write an effusive review of "More Guns, Less Crime" and then post it on the Amazon.com Web site. It was signed "Maryrosh." . . . Lott denied that he was the author of the review, an assertion made on various Web sites that have been tracking the controversy. He said his son wrote it, with some help from his wife. They told me they had done it. They showed it to me. I wasn't going to tell them not to do it. Should I have? 3:36:01 PM    comment []

Microsoft Punishes Workers for Abuses (AP). Microsoft Corp. said this week it has disciplined an undisclosed number of workers suspected of buying its software and reselling it. Microsoft allows employees to buy software at cost for personal use, but prohibits resale. The company declined to say how many workers were disciplined or what actions it took. 11:35:22 AM    comment []

Feds pull suspicious .gov site, by Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com. In a move that raises questions about the security of governmental domains, the Bush administration has pulled the plug on a .gov Web site pending an investigation into the authenticity of the organization that controlled it. Until recently, visitors to the AONN.gov Web site were treated to a smorgasbord of information about an agency calling itself the Access One Network Northwest (AONN), a self-described cyberwarfare unit claiming to employ more than 2,000 people and had the support of the U.S. Department of Defense. No federal agency called AONN appears to exist, and no agency with that name is on the official list of organizations maintained by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. 9:35:16 AM    comment []

New Law Stops Bosses Spying On E-Mail, by Penny Sukhraj, Sunday Times (Johannesburg). BOSSES who monitor their staff's e-mail, post and telephone calls face fines of up to [two million South African Rand] if they fail to get written consent to do so. New legislation that came into force in December stipulates that it is not enough for companies to simply inform workers that their communications are being monitored That's leadership. In that same conceptual neighborhood, see Why Spy? Technology that monitors employees' Web usage sounds like a smart way to keep them focused on work. Wrong. Let 'em surf. By Jeffrey Pfeffer, in Business 2.0. 3:34:14 AM    comment []