Ouch again! I know who that is in Palmira too.

Horseheads business owner denies pirating software.

By G. Jeffrey Aaron
jaaron@stargazette.com
Star-Gazette
December 6, 2006

Bit Bucket Computers in Horseheads has been named in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Rochester by Microsoft Corp.

According to court papers, Bit Bucket, located at 703 S. Main St., is accused of violating nine of Microsoft's registered copyrights and seven trademarks. The software programs involved in the civil action include familiar titles such as Access 2003, Office Outlook 2003 and Office Word 2003.

Microsoft is seeking statutory damages that will be determined by the court, the profits Bit Bucket derived from the sales of the pirated software and attorney fees.

John Cecce, Bit Bucket's owner, denied any wrongdoing and described the charges as an example of the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant "throwing its weight around."

"Microsoft has made certain allegations against us and I believe those allegations will be found without basis when my attorney mounts a vigorous defense," Cecce said.

Cecce also said that on the advice of his attorney he would have no further comments. Bit Bucket, which builds and sells computer systems for home and office use, has 20 days to file its answer to the complaint.

The case against Bit Bucket is one of 30 copyright and trademark infringement lawsuits Microsoft filed Monday in various district courts around the country. Nine of those cases involve computer system and software vendors that are located in New York. Six of those involve New York City-area vendors. The remaining three involve businesses in Horseheads, Palmyra and Utica.

Microsoft has a national program in place to locate and identify pirated copies of its software programs, said Mary Jo Schrade, a senior attorney with the company. It focuses on raising awareness of the risks to consumers from counterfeit software programs and trying to address piracy, which is costing the industry "billions of dollars" each year.

"But what people don't think about is it goes beyond the (manufacturer)," Schrade said. "There are a lot of honest companies that also lose money to pirates. We picked some areas for enforcement where we have had concerns in the past, and New York is one of those areas where we've seen a lot of piracy."

Schrade said Microsoft uses investigators posing as ordinary consumers to purchase computer software packages from a suspect vendor and send the items to Microsoft, where they are examined by the company's engineers. If counterfeiting is discovered, the company sends a cease-and-desist letter to the vendor. If the practice continues, Microsoft seeks legal remedies, she said.

Using the scenario described above, Microsoft learned that Bit Buckets sold a computer system to an undercover shopper in February that contained a pirated copy of Windows XP Pro software.

Although the company sent a cease-and-desist letter to the vendor later that month, a second investigator purchased a computer system loaded with two pirated programs -- Microsoft's Window's XP Pro and Office 2003 Pro software -- in August, the complaint alleges.

Microsoft's size, in terms of marketing reach and available products, makes it especially vulnerable to copyright infringements, said Guy Amisano, president of Salient Technologies. The Big Flats software firm develops online analytical processing software programs that can be used by business and government.

Amisano said he regularly receives e-mail solicitations from questionable vendors hawking Microsoft products.

"We use a copyright to protect our codes and we never let the codes out without hardware protection. The codes are also serialized so we know who's using it, and since we're a smaller operation, (pirating) isn't much of a problem," Amisano said.

Consumers not targeted

Microsoft will provide consumers affected by pirated software with a letter they can use to obtain a refund or get the software they should have received. To be eligible, consumers must report the incident to the company's anti-piracy hot line at 800/785-3448.

Labels: News

Ouch!

Star-Gazette
December 5, 2006

Bit Bucket Computers, located at 703 S. Main St. in Horseheads, has been named in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Rochester by Microsoft Corp.

According to court papers, Bit Bucket is accused of violating nine of Microsoft’s registered copyrights and seven trademarks. The software programs involved in the civil action include popular titles like Access 2003, Office Outlook 2003, and Office Word 2003.

On or about February this year, the papers allege, Bit Buckets sold a computer system that contained a pirated copy of Windows XP Pro software to an undercover "mystery shopper" hired by Microsoft. Although the company sent a cease and desist letter to Bit Buckets later that month, a second mystery shopper purchased a computer system loaded with two pirated programs in August.

Microsoft is seeking punitive damages that will be determined by the court, the profits Bit Buckets derived from its illegal activities and attorneys fees.

Labels: News

Who might this be??? Unfortunately someone in my own backyard felling the MS pinch.

Star-Gazette
December 4, 2006

An unidentifed Horseheads computer business is being named in a civil suit filed Monday in federal court that charges the business with pirating Microsoft software and violating copyright laws.

Mary Jo Schrade, senior Microsoft attorney, said the name of the business is being withheld until the legal papers are served later today. The local company will be identifed then, she said.

Schrade also said the legal action against the Horseheads company is one of nine similar suits being filed in New York. Overall, 30 suits will be filed across the country today, with a second round scheduled for filing in late January.

Schrade said all of the cases filed today involve pirating copyrighted software or hard disc loading, where a vendor buys one copy of a software program and loads it on every computer sold at a particular store. Depending on the particulars of each individual case, Microsoft is seeking penalties ranging from $150,000 to $1 million.

The cases all resulted from "mystery shoppers" purchasing suspect computers and shipping them to Microsoft, where they where analyzed by the company’s engineers.

Check back with www.stargazette.com for continuing coverage of this story and read Tuesday's Star-Gazette for the complete story.

Labels: News

The story below was aired on WETM channel 18 News in Elmira, NY. The story, as you'll see, was about identity theft from discarding your old pc's with information that you don't think is still on it. Well, WETM called yours trully to do data recovery on some hard drives that were discarded, just to see what we could find for a news story, and we did find alot to go on. Below is the story as it aired and they posted it in print on their website as well, and they included a quote from me in the story too :)

Last Update: 11/29/2006 2:46:10 PM
Posted By: Rachel Rose

Bank account numbers. Social security numbers. Home addresses and more.

It's everything a criminal needs to steal your identity. Chances are, all or most of that information is stored right on your personal computer.

You may think you can just click "delete" to get rid of information on your hard drive before you throw it out, right? Wrong! We went through dozens of old, discarded computers and found everything a thief needs to steal your identity.

Take Margaret Rebarchik of Horseheads, for example. When she threw out her family's old personal computer, she thought she'd erased all the files from the hard drive. What she didn't know was that clicking "delete" doesn't really delete anything at all.

"It's just... it's just very unnerving that this would be out there," said Margaret when we confronted her with all the personal information we retrieved from her discarded computer.

We found Margaret's computer at R.E.A.C.T., an electronics recycling center in Big Flats. Then we took it to CyberDark Computing in Elmira to see just how easy it would be for a hacker to pull up her old files.

In a matter of minutes, we hit the jackpot: account numbers, addresses, phone numbers, employer information, birth dates. The list goes on and on.

"We just ran a simple little recovery that can be easily downloaded online, and recovered all their deleted files," said Phil Dowd, a CyberDark technician.

All it took was the simple click of a mouse and, in an instant, we had everything we needed to steal Margaret's identity. That's something that should be of grave concern to people who own personal computers, according to New York State Assistant Attorney General Michael Danaher.

"I had the opportunity to go through some of the information and you can almost picture the person in front of you when you look at some of the things recovered off the hard drive," Danaher said.

Of course, Margaret wasn't the only one at risk for identity theft. We found discarded computers with tax returns on them... even a copy of a security card with a signature! The risks are enormous, and the results could be devastating.

"A person can use any personal identification information to go into accounts and take money out of the accounts," Danaher said. "They could try to have the accounts transferred over to their names, they could get credit cards in the name of the person, using their personal identification information, and they could create a whole new credit history for that person."

According to the Federal Trade Commission, last year, more than 17,000 New Yorkers reported they'd been victims of identity theft. The same held true for 8,000 Pennsylvanians.

Fortunately, Margaret Rebarchik wasn't one of them. But, she could have been.

"All that personal information is stored on the computer as if it were a file cabinet," Danaher said. "You threw out your file cabinet without destroying any of the papers that were in it!"

A lesson learned in Margaret's book.

"I didn't know this back then, but I do now!"

Labels: News

Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, strongly criticized CNN Friday for its "Broken Government" series of specials in the run-up to the November mid-term elections and for its airing of tapes of snipers shooting American soldiers in Iraq.

In an interview with Situation Room anchor Wolf Blitzer, Cheney said the network's Vote 2006 specials contained "terrible distortions of the president's and vice president's positions on many issues."

She suggested CNN was working from Democratic talking points, and took issue with the negative tone of the title "Broken Government," suggesting it betrayed CNN's bias and countering that the administration had inherited a recession, been through some tough times like 9/11 and Katrina, but that the economy was healthy. "That's not broken, " she said, "this government has acted very well... I shouldn't let media bias surprise me, but I worked for CNN once [with Crossfire, according to Blitzer], and I was troubled.

Blitzer said the series was "probably" meant to be provocative, "to get people to think, to get people to discuss these issues."

Cheney turned the tables on Blitzer, becoming the questioner: "what is CNN doing running tapes of terrorists shooting Americans," she asked more than once, repeating a question CNN had been asked: "Do you want us to win?"

"The answer is, of course, we want the United States to win," said Blitzer. "We are Americans." Blitzer said airing the footage was not terrorist propaganda but "reporting the news. This is what we do... We make no apologies for showing it."

Later in the newscast, Lou Dobbs defended the "Broken Borders" series, saying that with all due respect, the government was broken in many respects and that he had been critical of Republicans and Democrats. He called Cheney's criticisms "power bridling at truth."

Cheney also complained that she wanted to talk about her children's book, Our 50 States, but had spent about 10 of the 15 alloted minutes for the interview responding to questions about her husband's comments about tactics used to question detainees and the citing of some passages of a book she wrote by Democratic Virginia Senate candidate Jim Webb in defending some racy passages in his books. She said Webb was "full of baloney."

Making lemons out of lemonade, CNN heavily teased the interview and Cheney's anger with the network for the first hour and a half of Situation Room.

Labels: News, Political