One judge has said the technology was helping to mitigate the “tyranny of distance” arising from divorce and forging “meaningful relationships” between children and their parents, wherever in the world they live.

In one recent case, known in court records as Bletch and Douglas (2008), a mother was allowed to move with her nine-year-old son to the US after developing a “unique communications skill” that landed her an “elevated media profile”, a $450,000 book advance, and interest from American talk shows.

But, she was told, she had to “ensure that whilst the child lives with her in America he has reasonable access to a computer which has a Skype program installed, together with a webcam, in order that the child may communicate with his father by that means or by email at times which the child and his father may mutually agree upon”.

In Bradley and Bradley (2009), a mother was permitted to return to her native Sweden with her two children, after her marriage ended.

The judge acknowledged the distress this would cause the children’s father, saying “communication with the children will be difficult” since they would be living on opposite sides of the world, but this “can be managed with Skype, video and trips”.

He ordered the mother to “obtain a computer which has internet access installed, including a webcam and Skype” within 14 days of her arrival in Sweden, and to provide the father with the children’s email addresses.

In Rossi and Rossi (2008) both parents were ordered to “each set up at their own expense as soon as practicable, but within eight weeks, a computer with internet connection and a webcam and Skype”.

In Garth and Hope (2008) federal magistrate Stewart Brown said Skype was a “cheap, accessible and effective way” for children to stay in contact with their absent parent.

“Although it is no substitute for direct physical contact, these media, in my view, dilute to a significant degree some of the tyranny of distance,” he said.

But not all judges believe that Skype can facilitate a meaningful relationship.

In Cales v Cales, Justice John Cohen refused a mother’s petition to move from Sydney to the Hunter Valley, saying “real rather than virtual closeness” to their father was more important to the children than her desire to move. The mother told the court the “Skype program could be used, so the children could see (their father) while speaking to him, and the children would enjoy contact with (their father) in this manner”.

Justice Cohen disagreed, saying “the reality of all types of communication other than face-to-face is that they are inferior, and only a default choice”.

“I consider the children’s need for, and right to have, optimal real contact with their father as much more important” than the mother’s desire to live a rural life.

In Irish and Michelle (2009), a case in which children were removed from the care of their mother in Tasmania and ordered to live with their father in Melbourne, Justice Benjamin said there was “no reason why the children cannot maintain contact with the other parent via telephone, Skype and email”.

At the other end of the communications revolution, a public service official based in Canberra used Skype to give up his battle to prevent his former wife from moving to Gippsland with their daughter.

His message to his wife, read out in court, read: “Hello, please feel free to relocate to (Gippsland) with (the child).

“I have no interest, time or energy for this matter to be played out in a court of law.

“Please note that (the child) repeatedly said that she does not want to move to (Gippsland) in our Skype conversation today.

“However, I hope the move and your new job in (Gippsland) becomes all you want it to be and wish you the best of luck and success.”

The m-SPAM Act, brought forward by Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., would expand the regulatory authority of the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to intervene against the increasing use of text messages among spammers.

“Mobile spam invades both a consumer’s cell phone and monthly bill,” Snowe said in a statement. She also expressed concern that a rise in mobile spam could bring the same types of viruses and malware commonly transmitted through e-mail spam to the mobile arena.

“This significant and looming threat must be addressed in order to protect consumers and vital wireless services,” Snowe said.

Among other things, the m-SPAM Act would explicitly bar marketers from sending text messages to any mobile number in the national Do-Not-Call registry maintained by the FTC.

For several years, a bogus chain e-mail has circulated around the Web warning of a new commercial database of wireless numbers, and that telemarketers are poised to begin inundating mobile subscribers with solicitation calls. The FTC dispels the myth on its site, reminding consumers that marketers are prohibited from using direct-dialing machines to call cell phones under FCC regulations.

Consumers have been able to register cell phones in the Do-Not-Call registry since it opened in 2003. Nevertheless, text messaging has remained outside its purview. FTC spokesman Mitch Katz told InternetNews.com that the registry was “designed solely to focus on telemarketing calls.”

The blueprints for the Do-Not-Call registry were laid out in 2002, when text messaging was still a fringe technology. Congress directed the FTC to revise the registry in 2007 so that numbers in the database would remain there permanently, but it didn’t take up the issue of text spam, which Snowe and Nelson worry is increasing at an alarming rate.

Citing a study by Ferris Research, the senators noted that mobile subscribers received more than 1.1 million spam text messages, a 38 percent increase from 2006.

“Spam e-mail is bad enough,” Nelson said. “Now, we are seeing a proliferation of unwanted text messages — and consumers are getting stuck paying.”

The Snowe-Nelson bill is similar to legislation introduced last month in the House by Georgia Republican Phil Gingrey. His bill is more limited in scope, and would only apply to the Do-Not-Call registry, whereas the Senate legislation hopes to effect a broader reform of the federal spam law.

A spokeswoman for Snowe told InternetNews.com that the House and Senate bills were separate efforts. Both would require the FTC to update the Do-Not-Call registry within 180 days of being signed into law.

The Snowe-Nelson bill expands an existing congressional inquiry into anti-consumer text-messaging practices. Last year, Sen. Herb Kohl, the Wisconsin Democrat who chairs the Antitrust Subcommittee, called on the four major wireless carriers to explain why text-message rates had doubled within a span of two years.

In a recent policy statement outlining the subcommittee’s agenda for the new legislative session, Kohl and Utah’s Orrin Hatch, the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, said they planned to continue their inquiry into the possibility of collusion among the carriers when they all increased their rates for text messages within a few weeks of the others.

For Snowe, the new legislation is just the latest of a string initiatives that have established her as one of the leading voices for IT and telecom legislation in the Senate. In this session, Snowe has already cosponsored legislation that would require the FCC to take a thorough inventory of the wireless spectrum that could be used for new broadband networks, as well as a bill to revamp the government’s cyber defenses.

She is also planning to reintroduce Net neutrality legislation within the next several weeks, an aide in her office has told InternetNews.com.

Snowe, a moderate, is also seen as a key crossover vote in the Senate when Democrats look to snag Republican votes to reach the magic number of 60. Snowe joined with her colleague from Maine, Susan Collins, and Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter in crossing party lines to clear the $787 billion economic stimulus package in February

At the time of writing researchers were analyzing the code of the software that had been dropped onto infected computers. The researchers suspected that it was a keystroke logger, or some other data-stealing program, said David Perry, global director of security education at Trend Micro.

Researchers for Trend Micro said that the software appeared to be a .sys component hiding behind a rootkit, which is software that is designed to hide the fact that a computer has been compromised. The software was heavily encrypted, which made code analysis difficult, the researchers said.

The update appeared to be attempting to access the Waledac domain, according to a post on the TrendLabs Malware Blog on Wednesday. W32.Waledac steals sensitive information, turns computers into spam zombies, and establishes a back door remote access.

The worm also tried to connect to MySpace.com, MSN.com, eBay.com, CNN.com and AOL.com, to test if the computer had internet connectivity. It then deleted all traces of itself in the host machine, and was set to shut down on May 3, according to the TrendLabs Malware Blog.

Infected computers are receiving the new component in a staggered manner rather than all at once, so there should be no disruption to the websites the computers visit, said Paul Ferguson, advanced threats researcher for Trend Micro.

On Tuesday night Trend Micro researchers noticed a new file in the Windows Temp folder and a huge encrypted TCP response from a known Conficker P2P IP node hosted in Korea.

“As expected, the P2P communications of the Downad/Conficker botnet may have just been used to serve an update, and not via HTTP,” the blog post says. “The Conficker/Downad P2P communications is now running in full swing!”

A previous variant, Conficker.C, failed to make a splash a week ago despite the fact that it was programmed to activate on April 1. It has infected between 3 million and 12 million computers, according to Perry.

Initially, researchers thought they were seeing a new variant of the Conficker worm, but now they believe it is merely a new component of the worm.

Security company Symantec said on Thursday that the update was for machines infected with the first variant of the worm, Conficker.A.

The worm spreads via a hole in Windows that Microsoft patched in October, as well as through removable storage devices and network shares with weak passwords. The worm disables security software and blocks access to security websites.

Erik Larkin, PC World

Jan 16, 2009 10:31 pm