Company fined $200,000 – Workers died in manhole with low oxygen supply The Spec
A Toronto telecommunications company has been fined $200,000 for its part in the death of two of its workers in an Oakville manhole in 2007. Greg Gauthier, 52, of Binbrook, and Rodney Metcalfe, 33, of Brampton, drowned at the bottom of a Bell Canada manhole near Third Line and the North Service Road on June 28, 2007. The two workers from The Wesbell Group of Technologies Inc. were in an underground vault, about five metres below the surface, to inspect ducts and feed fibre optic cables between manholes. A low oxygen supply caused them to pass out and fall into a metre of water at the bottom of the vault. They were found by a co-worker mid-morning and later pronounced dead at hospital. Wesbell pleaded guilty under the Occupational Health and Safety Act to failing to ensure that a written plan had been prepared and implemented to protect the two men from the dangers of entering a confined space. The fine was imposed by justice of the peace Richard LeDressay yesterday in provincial court…. Bell Canada was fined $280,000 in March for its role in the men’s deaths, the largest fine ever under the Canada Labour Code for health and safety violations. [Additional: http://news.ontario.ca/mol/en/2009/07/telecommunications-company-fined-200000-after-two-workers-killed.html]

US the origin of 16 per cent of spam Heise Online
According to a spam trend report published by the security specialists Sophos, about 1 in 6 junk emails, or 15.6 per cent of spam worldwide, now originates in the US. In contrast, Russia, formerly a big source of spam, is currently only responsible for 3.2 per cent. By continent, Asia continues to be the worst offender with 31.7 per cent. Spamhaus’ current ranking (at time of writing) for the top ten countries over the last 24 hours also shows the US as the main spam source.

New Version Reflects Lowered Price on Mac Notebook Advertising Age
Following a complaint from Apple, Microsoft has quietly tweaked at least one of the ads in its “Laptop Hunters” campaign to reflect its rival’s lower pricing on its Mac notebooks. In the new version of the ad, Lauren doesn’t talk about how much the Mac costs, but she does say: ‘It seems like you’re paying a lot for the brand.’ In the new version of the ad, Lauren doesn’t talk about how much the Mac costs, but she does say: ‘It seems like you’re paying a lot for the brand.’ Just last week Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner was ecstatic about a phone call from Apple lawyers, who demanded that Microsoft stop showing the ads because it had lowered its prices. Mr. Turner went on to say the call from Apple’s legal department was the “greatest single phone call” he’s ever taken and that Microsoft plans to “keep running them and running them and running them.”

Game pirate converted home into fakes factory The Age
A struggling Melbourne university graduate who turned to pirating the world’s most popular computer games for profit has been convicted and fined $20,000 on three copyright charges. Jeffrey Lim, 28, converted the ground floor of his parents’ Doncaster home into a work office that held six hard drives, a computer flat screen, three printers, three DVD burners, three computer towers, four scanners and various printer cartridges. Melbourne Magistrates Court heard yesterday that Lim, a bachelor of science graduate from Monash university, copied and sold hundreds counterfeit Nintendo, Wii, DS, Xbox and Playstation games over a two-year period. Commonwealth prosecutor Liz Tickey said the Xbox games included Quantum of Solace and The Bourne Conspiracy and PSP games of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and director Peter Jackson’s King Kong.

Officials: US wins WTO films, music case vs. China Associated Press
The U.S. has largely prevailed in a trade dispute with China over restrictions on the sale there of American CDs, DVDs, books and computer software, two officials familiar with the ruling have told The Associated Press. The confidential verdict from the World Trade Organization victory comes as the administration of President Barack Obama is being pressed to be tough over trade rules with China, which many Democrats in the U.S. Congress blame in part for America’s soaring trade deficits and lost manufacturing jobs. The ruling in the case, filed during the preceding Bush administration, was released to Beijing and Washington last month, but won’t be made public until Aug. 12. It finds that Beijing is breaking commerce rules by forcing U.S.-made goods from magazines to video games to be sold through Chinese state-owned companies, the officials said.

AC/DC fan, 8, cries foul over [Bell Canada] contest screw-up The Star
Josh Bowman doesn’t want to come across as a “problem child” but his bid to win a contest as AC/DC’s biggest fan has become a “highway to hell.” The 8-year-old from Niagara Falls was one of three finalists chosen nationwide to compete in an online contest to become the Ultimate AC/DC Fan. The contest is sponsored by Bell/MSN Sympatico. When voting began on July 8, Josh quickly took the lead and within two days had a 20 per cent lead over his nearest competitor. But then someone at Bell decided to “reset” the vote counter, wiping out thousands of votes… “I like what they (AC/DC) do on the stage because it’s cool. It’s not fair,” Josh said… [The Mother] Lydia Bowman said she’s unhappy with the lesson the experience is teaching her son…. “I’m not trying to teach my son he needs to win. If you asked him, he would say, ‘You don’t always win.’ My issue is that you need to stand up when someone’s not being fair to you,” Bowman said. [Comment: Josh, let this be a life lesson to you about Bell Canada. I like this mom.]

Researchers to offer tool for breaking into Oracle databases CNet
During their presentation at the Black Hat and Defcon hacker conferences next week in Las Vegas, security experts will release a tool that can be used to break into Oracle databases. Chris Gates and Mario Ceballos will present Oracle Pentesting Methodology and give out “all the tools to break the ‘unbreakable’ Oracle as Metasploit auxiliary modules,” according to a summary of their presentation on the Defcon Web site. The tools are designed to help companies determine whether their systems are vulnerable, Gates said in an e-mail response to questions from CNET News. “There wasn’t a good set of (free) tools for auditing Oracle databases,” he said. Gates said he did not contact Oracle about his presentation because none of the exploits or exploitation methods are new and information about ways to mitigate the attacks has been public for some time.

Lesbian couples cause run on Swedish sperm banks The Local
A shortage of healthy sperm and a spike in demand from lesbian couples has caused a backlog of artificial insemination applications at Swedish fertility clinics. While legislation granting lesbian couples the right to the treatment has increased the demand, Sweden’s requirement for non-anonymous donations combined with poor quality sperm has also reduced the supply of donor sperm. At Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, for example, couples are forced to wait a year-and-a-half for artificial insemination treatment, reported the Göteborgs-Posten (GP) newspaper. During the spring, the hospital even began actively recruiting new donors in an effort to reduce wait times.

Marc – p2pnet

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