Is your printer/scanner spying on you?

Allegations have been swirling around an online newsgroup this week that printer manufacturer Lexmark has been installing spyware on its customers' computers.

...One user said that after initially denying the allegations, Lexmark acknowledged installing tracking software that reported printer and cartridge use back to the company for survey purposes. He claimed that Lexmark said no personal data was taken by the program, and that it was impossible to identify anyone by it. However, users installing the software are prompted to fill in a registration form including their name and the serial number of the product.

...The program sends the information, which includes print and scanning data, to the URL www.lxkcc1.com. According to the Internet Whois database, this domain name belongs to Lexmark International in Kentucky.

Time for a new printer? Hey, it's almost as expensive as an ink refill, which Lexmark already went to court over.

Interesting read....

dglenn: Toward A Proper Counting -- Investigate The Election

"Even if you don't think a recount would change the results, it might bring far more of the voting irregularites and problems with the various voting machine systems into public view." This is about the future of American elections, not about clinging to a last shred of hope for Kerry. This is about exposing problems so that they can be repaired.

More than meets...uhm, something

From rewil: Dancing Transformers.

No, really. Main site here.

I'm not a big fan, but wow. Very nicely done. You watchin' this, jim_smith?

Florida's Decent People assemble

Great column in the St. Pete Times....

This past Tuesday in Jacksonville, the Florida Baptist Convention voted to support a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. ... "The church is the voice of morality," declared the sponsor of this resolution, the Rev. Jay Dennis of Lakeland.

My only question is:

Why just this morality?

Why just this sin?

...Sure, homosexuality is called an "abomination." The Bible says so, not too far from where the Bible also says it's okay to stone your headstrong son to death, and that you'd better stay away from menstruating women.

...In fact, irresistibly, Matthew 7:5 keeps coming back to me:

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Okay, enough. Read the thing already. It's good.