never-ever-****-with-my.net

As reported by Computerworld, Musicrypt is using BioPassword's multifactor authentication software to secure its promotional music deliveries:

"During the War, the allies discovered a way to track German telegraph operators by identifying their particular style of typing code, something known as 'the fist of the sender.'  Forty years later, researchers SRI International, a nonprofit research institute spun out of Stanford University, applied this work to the keyboard and found that people could also be identified by the rhythm of their typing.

This technology eventually landed in the hands of BioPassword Inc., based in Issaquah, Washington.  After taking about nine samples of an 8- to 16-keystroke password, the company's software is able to identify the 'fist' of the typist."

Update 2006/04/17: I forgot to mention that I initially heard of the fist of the sender in The Code Book by Simon Singh, which gives a good historical perspective on cryptography.

Forbes World's Billionaires 2006 ranking is out!

In today's European edition of the Wall Street Journal, Lee Gomes wrote an interesting column on Under the Radar's Why Web 2.0 Matters conference where start-ups presented their business plans to a panel of VCs and other judges.

"The advice came in the form of the sorts of probing questions (...) such as:

1. Is what you are doing really a company or just a feature that will end up as part of some existing product?
2. If you are trying to take on an incumbent player--Google, MySpace--do you do something 10 times better than they do?
3. If you are developing something for the Web, what is to stop spammers from ruining everything you are trying to do?"

As reported by Computerworld, Apple's iTunes Music Store hits the 1B song mark.