Slamming Spammers

Top 11 Punishments We'd Like To See For Spammers

11) Give their home and business phone numbers to telemarketers

10) Make them invest all their profits in the bogus companies they promote

9) Distribute a script that converts spam to snail mail that's delivered to the originator marked "Postage Due"

8) Make them write "Thou shall not spam" 100 times for every e-mail they send7) Give them a paper cut for every piece of spam they send

6) Make them lick all the bulk mail envelopes at the post office

5) Put them on an all-SPAM™ diet for one year

4) Make them hand-write an apology to each recipient

3) Add their names to terrorist watch lists so they get "special treatment" when they fly2) Force them to watch the movie "You've Got Mail" over and over again, "Clockwork Orange"-style

1) Tattoo a scarlet "S" to each one's forehead

Special thanks to our unofficial Corrections Department officials--Corky Camin, Rick Doyle, Jordan Nash, Nick Nielsen, Darrell Pitzer, Gregory Pleau, Bruce Saunders, Dominic Vadakkan--for their inventive behavior modification techniques. May your spam filters be 100 percent accurate.

Read More Submissions

The Dark Side of Computing »The force must be with sci-fi casemod contest winner David Barry, whose Imperial TIE fighter would make an IT manager (or an evil galactic emperor) proud. The computer boasts an 80-GB hard drive, an Athlon XP 1800+ processor and even a CD-ROM drive. It also includes a Plexiglas desk to hold the keyboard, monitor and your light saber. See it for yourself. Now, if someone could just make a casemod of Han Solo frozen in carbonite--he could hold the mouse in one stiff hand when it's not in use.And speaking of evil galatic overlords, here's a new encryption method that may have E.T. or other intergalactic beings trying to eavesdrop on your communications. A team of Japanese scientists has developed a method for generating encryption keys using radio pulses emitted by quasars. A quasar is a quasistar that astronomers believe is powered by a black hole. The pulses emitted by quasars are truly random as opposed to computer-generated encryption, which is pseudo-random. Pseudo-randomness can reveal patterns, given sufficient time and computing power.

The researchers hope this method will appeal to governments and financial institutions that require highly secure communication systems. But before you set up a satellite dish, consider this: Attackers could interfere with or mimic radio signals, and computer-based key-generation methods can create sufficiently strong keys that would take hundreds or thousands of years to break.

The Fastest Brain in the Data Center

»There are lots of ways to measure the value of your IT staff, such as years of experience or the number of professional certifications. To that list you can add a new test that measures the speed at which the brain processes information.

Developed by Posit Science, the test records a subject's response to audio signals. The ability to process sounds quickly is essential for recording and recalling information later on, and the ability declines with age, according to the company. Test subjects in their 20s have an average score of 68 milliseconds; subjects in their 50s have an average score of 99 ms. The test can be taken online at the company's Web site. If you get a good score--put it on your resumé!0