Spencer F. Katt

Spencer was pleasantly surprised when he spoke to Anne Mitchell, Esq., former director of legal affairs for Mail Abuse Prevention System, or MAPS, to hear that she was now CEO of an anti-spam startup called Habeas. Spencer knew Mitchell was a savvy legal eagle from his investigation of the numerous court battles with which MAPS […]

El Gato thinks some Sun staffers might not be as comfortable with the companys new Sun Linux 5.0 as Scott McNealy would like. A Tabby tattler said Red Hat executives were astounded during last weeks LinuxWorld in San Francisco to see some of Suns new LX50 edge servers—on public display for the first time at […]

“As if Sun doesnt have enough problems,” pondered the Puss between pawfuls of popcorn as he watched the coming attractions before the sci-fi thriller “Minority Report.” With HP and IBM set to gang up on Scott McNealy & Co. at LinuxWorld in San Francisco this week, flaunting offers to migrate Solaris users to their Linux […]

A frequent user of the Ubid online auction site contacted El Gato last week to tell him about an e-mail scam to trick Ubid members into coughing up passwords. Apparently, someone had been sending fake e-mail to members under the subject line “Ubid—security, please follow instructions.” The e-mail contained a link to a bogus Web […]

One of the Kittys favorite summer pastimes is hitting the beach and diving into a good trashy novel. But in Russia, some prefer hacking into their summer reading. Vladimir Katalov, head of Russian software developer ElcomSoft, recently posted the vulnerabilities his company found in the Adobe eBook Library on Insecure.org. ElcomSoft said the bugs, which […]

El Gato pinched himself to make sure he hadnt drifted into some alternate reality. Surely it couldnt be the Steve Ballmer from the Kittys universe telling attendees at Microsofts Fusion in L.A. last week, “We havent figured out how to be lower-priced than Linux.” As the Furballs head spun, his geekier side tried to draw […]

“So, how much influence does that talking Holstein cow have on Gateway head honcho Ted Waitt?” mused the Mouser after hearing that the PC vendor is offering free digital music classes at its Gateway Country retail stores throughout the summer. Spencer assumed the Svengali-like cow talked Ted into offering the free MP3 downloads available via […]

A furball fan relayed to el gato a copy of a cease-and-desist letter that Time Warner Cable sent to folks it suspected were transmitting the companys broadband cable service over wireless networks in and around New York. Although wireless users might claim theyre only extending their paid cable Internet service from a residential link to […]

Even tech trade show organizers are not immune to the hurdles facing enterprise IT staffs, thought the Puss as he jetted back to Beantown from TechXNY in New York last week. Event organizers had installed in the pressroom a WLAN for reporters, but problems with the secure ID and a WEP key that was about […]

A fire in an unlicensed cyber-cafe in Beijing, which killed 24 people and injured 13, made El Gato reflect on the ways technology is viewed internationally. The blaze gave officials cause to close the few existing government-sanctioned Internet cafes for three months, pending investigation. Spencer imagines that tougher crackdowns on the some 2,000 unlicensed cafes […]