April 18, 2003

Planning for the Next Cyberwar Wired - Buoyed by its decisive win in Iraq, the Pentagon is betting billions that the information technology system that helped defeat Saddam Hussein will evolve into a more potent weapon than cluster bombs and howitzers. Department of Defense futurists call it network-centric warfare. Other military strategists simply refer to it as the digital war. The first Gulf War was analog, they say. This one was digital. 6:52:09 PM

Barzan's arrest welcome omen in hunt for Saddam's henchmen SpaceDaily - The arrest of Iraq's former intelligence chief and half-brother to Saddam Hussein, Barzan al-Tikriti, has fueled hopes that Washington's list of most-wanted from the regime will eventually face justice. 6:40:27 PM

SADDAM'S GOLD GUN SEIZED AT HEATHROW The Mirror - UK - A gold-plated gun given to a Saddam Hussein henchman was seized at Heathrow yesterday. The loaded Kalashnikov AK47, similar to one found at Uday Hussein's palace in Baghdad, is believed to have been stolen for the US black market in war trophies. 6:38:32 PM

FTC Files Suit Against Sender of Porn 'Spam' Washington Post - The Federal Trade Commission is suing one of the country's most active purveyors of pornographic junk e-mail, part of a stepped-up push by the agency to combat spam. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Illinois, alleges Brian D. Westby of Missouri violated federal laws by sending e-mail whose deceptive subject lines, such as "What is wrong?" and "Fwd: You may want to reboot your computer," camouflaged the actual content: images of scantily clad women and links to 20 porn Web sites Westby operated, many of them featuring "married but lonely" women. 3:36:04 PM

So who's buying those antiquities? Buzzmachine:  As I drove home tonight listening to the BBC World Service on the radio, someone from the British Museum said that some of the antiquities stolen from the looted museums of Baghdad are already showing up... where?... in Paris. He said Paris is the headquarters of this trade. He also made clear that much of what is being portrayed as mob looting is, instead, an organized theft ring with a market. So the fault for the looting of the museums rests in great measure in the laps of those who are criticizing us for not stopping it: with the French. If the French had agreed to join in the war, perhaps they could have guarded the museums. But we were busy. We were protecting people. Maybe we didn't stop the looting of the museums. But we also didn't cause it. Did the European antique trade? Did the French? 9:58:51 AM