Wisconsin Advanced Technology Advocates, Inc.

Appeals court upholds state anti-spam law

By CHELYEN DAVIS

RICHMOND--The Virginia Court of Appeals yesterday upheld the nation's first conviction under an anti-spam law.

The court rejected an appeal by Jeremy Jaynes, who was convicted in 2004 in Loudoun County of violating Virginia's anti-spam law, the nation's most restrictive law against Internet spam e-mails.

Jaynes, a North Carolina resident who was considered the eighth worst spammer in the world by Spamhaus, a spammer monitoring group, was accused of hiding and falsifying routing and domain information to send hundreds of thousands of unwanted e-mails.

Virginia's law allows for the sending of unsolicited bulk e-mail, but makes it a crime for senders to hide their identities if they're sending more than 10,000 pieces of e-mail in a single 24-hour period, or 100,000 in a 30-day period.

Evidence from his original trial showed that Jaynes had sent more than 12,000 unsolicited e-mails on a single day in July 2003--right after Virginia's law took effect--and more than that on two other days that month. He had also gone to lengths to hide the origin of those e-mails.

Full story.

Patent Fight Rattles Academic Computing

Patent Fight Rattles Academic Computing
The Associated Press

By JUSTIN POPE

August 29, 2006

Increasingly, we see these systems as the foundation of academic computing. In an Aug. 27 story about a patent dispute in the academic computing field, The Associated Press gave an erroneous title for Alfred Essa of the Minnesota state college and university system. He is associate vice chancellor and deputy chief information officer, not CIO.

Every day, millions of students taking online college courses act in much the same way as their bricks-and-mortar counterparts. After logging on, they move from course to course and do things like submit work in virtual drop boxes and view posted grades _ all from a program running on a PC.

It may seem self-evident that virtual classrooms should closely resemble real ones. But a major education software company contends it wasn't always so obvious. And now, in a move that has shaken up the e-learning community, Blackboard Inc. has been awarded a patent establishing its claims to some of the basic features of the software that powers online education.

Full story.

Deleting data violates law

Deleting data violates law
By David Ziemer
Wisconsin Law Journal

March 15, 2006

What the court held

Case: International Airport Centers, L.L.C., v. Citrin, No. 05-1522.

Issue: Does an employee violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by erasing all the data from a laptop loaned to him by his employer?

Holding: Yes. Using a secure-erasure program is a "transmission" that damages the computer, and is thus, within the ambit of the Act.

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act’s (CFAA) prohibition on transmitting a program, in order to damage a computer, includes erasing all the data from a laptop.

The Seventh Circuit’s Mar. 8 opinion also held it doesn’t matter whether the perpetrator has physical access to the computer or damages it from a remote location.

According to the complaint, Jacob Citrin was employed by International Airport Centers, L.L.C. (IAC), a real estate company, to identify properties that IAC might want to acquire, and to assist in any ensuing acquisition. IAC lent Citrin a laptop for his use.

Citrin decided to quit IAC and go into business for himself, in breach of his employment contract. Before returning the laptop, however, he deleted all the data in it, including data that purportedly would have revealed improper conduct on his part to IAC.

Full story.

Neurognostics signs a strategic partnership with Medical Numerics

Neurognostics signs a strategic partnership with Medical Numerics

Milwaukee, WI, March 29, 2006 – Neurognostics, Inc., a Milwaukee-based company specializing in functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) products and services, has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Medical Numerics, Inc., a software development company specializing in medical image visualization and analysis.

Working to provide the clinical community with the most comprehensive functional MR Imaging fMRI tools and applications, Neurognostics and Medical Numerics today announced a strategic alliance to deliver a new line of products to enhance fMRI’s utility in a clinical setting. The new product line will be based on Medical Numerics’ proprietary fMRI tool set, and Neurognostics’ MindState fDPD fMRI application software.

“We are thrilled about the opportunity to work with Medical Numerics,” said Neurognostics’ CEO, Douglas M. Tucker, Ph.D., M.B.A. “Both of our goals include advancing fMRI technology into clinical practice. It made sense for us to collaborate on our efforts to develop clinically useful fMRI tools and make them available to the clinical community. We explored a range of options to deliver fMRI tools into the hands of clinicians worldwide and concluded that Medical Numerics’ fMRI software solutions were by far the best. By partnering with Medical Numerics, we have the opportunity to add value by integrating our fMRI applications knowledge and expertise into one of the leading image visualization and analysis applications, and ultimately, leverage our expertise into the marketplace through Medical Numerics’ software applications and its scanner OEM relationships.”

“I am very excited about working with Neurognostics,” said Bob Steagall, Chief Operating Officer of Medical Numerics. “In combining their domain expertise in fMRI for detecting and staging central nervous system disorders with our expertise in software engineering and fMRI for neurosurgical planning, we will be able to offer our scanner OEM partners a set of fMRI applications of unmatched clinical utility. Our OEM partners will in turn be able to provide leading-edge clinical fMRI tools of the highest quality to their customers, ultimately benefiting the patient.”

USPTO to hold Open Source Software Community Meeting February 16, 2006

USPTO to hold Open Source Software Community Meeting February 16, 2006

The Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has created a partnership with the open source community to ensure that patent examiners have improved access to all available prior art relating to software code during the patent examination process.

Link to more information.

State hopes to blanket cities with wireless Internet access

State hopes to blanket cities with wireless Internet access

(Published Thursday, January 19, 2006 07:29:41 AM CST)

By Dinesh Ramde
Associated Press

MILWAUKEE - When she needs to surf the Internet away from school, Jennifer Roeh's only option is to stop by a local coffee shop.

. . .

Matt Miszewski, Wisconsin's chief information officer, said making Wi-Fi access a priority would build the state's reputation for technology savvy.

"We want businesspeople to know they can land at the airport and have connectivity from the airport all the way to their hotel rooms," he said.

Full story.

Sajan opens Milwaukee/Chicago Regional Office

Sajan, a leading translation service and technology provider announces the opening of their latest regional office in Milwaukee, WI. This expansion will enable Sajan to meet rising client demand in the metro areas of Madison, Milwaukee, and Chicago.

Press Release.

Software makes MRI more useful

A new way to look at the brain
Software makes MRI more useful
By KATHLEEN GALLAGHER
kgallagher@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Dec. 23, 2005

Many doctors want to use the groundbreaking information a new generation of imaging machines is producing but don't know how.

A 1-year-old spinoff from the Medical College of Wisconsin aims to show them the way.

Kyron Clinical Imaging Inc., founded by three Medical College radiology professors, has a part-time employee and no product yet.

But the Wauwatosa company received Food & Drug Administration clearance this week to market its BrainViewRx Viewer; has four patents with three more pending; and is operating in one of the hottest areas in medical research.

Full story.

Alleged Virus Spreader Held Without Bond

Alleged Virus Spreader Held Without Bond

The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 9, 2005; 8:00 AM

LOS ANGELES -- A man has been ordered held without bond on charges of spreading electronic viruses so he could gain control over military and other computers and sell access to hackers and spammers.

Authorities in California say Jeanson James Ancheta, 20, also downloaded adware programs onto some 400,000 of the infected computers, or "botnets," in order to profit from the placements.

Ancheta, who was arrested last week, pleaded not guilty Monday in federal court. Trial was set for Dec. 27.

Prosecutors say his programs were powerful enough to infect computers operated by the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake and the Defense Information Systems Agency, part of the U.S. Defense Department.

Full story.

Patents office rejects Microsoft FAT bid

Patents office rejects Microsoft FAT bid
By Matthew Broersma, Techworld

The US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has issued a preliminary rejection of two patents key to Microsoft's control of the FAT file system.

FAT has been in use since the 1970s, and is widely used in removable media such as USB memory sticks and cameras. Microsoft claims it developed FAT in 1976, and was granted a patent on the system in 1996. It began licensing the system to third parties in late 2003 and has signed up several major licensees, including Rockwell International, Creative Technology and Seiko, according to the company.

Full story.