“Omar was pretty good with computers…”

Good enough to disable 100 cars, remotely, after losing his job at a Texas auto distributorship.

Fascinating story at Wired.

“We initially dismissed it as mechanical failure,” says Texas Auto Center manager Martin Garcia. “We started having a rash of up to a hundred customers at one time complaining. Some customers complained of the horns going off in the middle of the night. The only option they had was to remove the battery.”

The dealership used a system called Webtech Plus as an alternative to repossessing vehicles that haven’t been paid for. Operated by Cleveland-based Pay Technologies, the system lets car dealers install a small black box under vehicle dashboards that responds to commands issued through a central website, and relayed over a wireless pager network. The dealer can disable a car’s ignition system, or trigger the horn to begin honking, as a reminder that a payment is due.

Ain’t technology wunnerful?

Happy Birthday, .com!

.com turned 25 years old on March 15. Bet you didn’t know that.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the first .com domain name, symbolics.com, was registered on March 15, 1985, by a Massachusetts computer firm that I’ve never heard of. It was followed by a veritable who’s who of the computer industry back then:

BBN.com – April 24, 1985

Think.com – May 24, 1985

MCC.com – July 11, 1985

DEC.com – Sept. 30, 1985

Northrop.com – Nov. 7, 1985

Xerox.com – Jan. 9, 1986

SRI.com – Jan. 17, 1986

HP.com – March 3, 1986

Bellcore.com – March 5, 1986

Happy birthday, .com!

Is Google getting cojones in China?

News from MSNBC that Google is finally showing some previously-blocked pictures in response to searches on Google.cn.

A week ago, the Financial Times reported that Google wass “99.9% certain” to close down its censored Chinese search engine.  Now, it appears as if the engine is still chugging along, with some of the old censorship gone.

It’s refreshing to see pictures of the “tank man” at Tiananmen Square, and a tiny trickle of information about Tibet, coming from the censored version of Google.

In response, Google’s stock took a hit, but it’s coming back. Good on ya, Google.