September, 2006

< Prev Page 5 Next >

Student computer pranksters face jail
A pair of California State University, Northridge students each face up to a year in jail for a prank that involved hacking into a professor's computer, giving grades to some 300 students and sending pizza, magazine subscriptions and CDs to the professor's home. Lena Chen, 20, of Torrance and Jennifer Ngan, 19, of Alhambra face misdemeanor charges of illegally accessing computers. They are scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 21. "They felt the professor was unfair, and it was on behalf of all the students," said Frank Mateljan, a spokesman for the city attorney's office, which filed the charges. "They were trying to be college pranksters." Mateljan said Chen admitted assigning grades to fellow students and inflating Ngan's grade from a D-plus to an A in the professor's political institutions course. The school would not release the professor's name. The hackers are alleged to have used personal information culled from the university system to order deliveries of pizza, 20 magazine subscriptions and a shipment of blank CDs to the professor's home. The professor was billed for the purchases but was not required to pay. Investigators also said the students arranged for the professor's campus e-mail to be forwarded to an account they created.

U.S. broadband subscribers jump 33% in 2005
U.S. high-speed Internet subscriptions soared 33% last year to 50.2 million lines, according to the latest data released by the Federal Communications Commission Wednesday. More consumers signed up for digital subscriber line (DSL) service from telephone companies like AT&T and Verizon Communications than cable modem service from companies like Comcast and Time Warner.DSL subscriptions jumped 5.7 million lines vs. cable companies adding 4.2 million subscribers in 2005, according to the FCC. The cable industry's market share dropped 3.5 percentage points to 57.5% while DSL gained 3.3 percentage points to reach 40.5, the agency said. DSL is typically less expensive than cable Internet service but offers slower download speeds. The United States is ranked 12th in the world for broadband subscribers behind countries including Iceland, South Korea and Japan, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's most recent rankings. U.S. officials have attributed the low ranking to other countries subsidizing the cost and because some of those nations have concentrated population centers that are easier to serve. An estimated 42% of Americans had high-speed Internet access at home in March 2006, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. That was up from 30% of Americans with high-speed access one year earlier, it said. U.S. cable and telephone companies are engaged in a fierce battle to offer customers a package of communications services, including voice, data, wireless and subscription television.

Ofcom publishes responses to 71-86GHz consultation
UK communications regulator Ofcom has published the responses it has received to its consultation into the 71-86GHz bands. The consultation could have serious implications for the primary amateur and amateur satellite allocation from 75.5 to 76.0GHz.The RSGB, satellite group Amsat UK and the UK Microwave Group have submitted a joint response to the consultation aimed at protecting amateur bands. This and all the other responses can be found on Ofcom’s website. See the RSGB website for the link. The Ofcom consultation document -Making Spectrum Available in the 71-76GHz and 81-86GHz Bands - can also be downloaded from Ofcom’s website. (RSGB)

Space presentations available on the web
Two presentations from amateur satellite group Amsat-UK’s recent International Space Colloquium have been published on the web. One is a presentation by Achim Vollhardt, DH2VA, on detecting signals from the Voyager 1 space craft, while the other is about the P3E amateur satellite project by Peter Guelzow, DB2OS. PDFs of both can be downloaded from the Amsat-DL website. (RSGB)

September, 2006

< Prev Page 5 Next >