Intel is planning to launch a Core 2 Quad Q8000 CPU series, offering entry-level prices to counter AMD's triple-core CPUs in the mainstream market, according to sources at motherboard makers.

Intel will launch the Core 2 Quad Q8200 in the third quarter this year, supporting FSB up to 1333MHz, L2 cache of 4MB and a core frequency of 2.33GHz. Pricing will be set around US$203 in thousand-unit quantities

In order to separate the Q8000 series from Intel's Q9000 CPU family, the Q8000 CPU series will not support Intel's VT and TXT technology.

An IT manager who sought revenge for an unfavorable job evaluation was sentenced to more than five years in federal prison after being convicted of intentionally triggering a massive data collapse on his former employer's computer network.

Jon Paul Oson, 38, of Chula Vista, California, was sentenced to 63 months behind bars and ordered to pay more than $409,000 in restitution, according to federal prosecutors in San Diego. He was immediately taken into custody after the sentence was handed down on Monday. It is one of the stiffest penalties ever for a computer hacking offense.

Oson was hired in May 2004 as a network engineer at the Council of Community Clinics in San Diego, a nonprofit that provides various services to 17 regional health clinics in Southern California. He performed well in that role and five months later was promoted to technical services manager. He ended up bitterly resigning a year later after a performance evaluation cited interpersonal difficulties, according to court documents.

On December 23, Oson logged onto servers belonging to his former employer and disabled the program that automatically backed up medical records for thousands of low-income patients. Six days later, he logged on again, and in the span of 43 minutes, methodically deleted the files containing patients' appointment data, medical charts and other information.

The dollar cost of Oson's rampage was pegged at $409,337.83 and accounted for expenses for technical investigations and moving to a paper-based system in the weeks following the attack. But the real toll came when doctors at North County Health Services no longer had medical records for thousands of low-income patients who sought medical care. North County Health Services contracted with Oson's employer to store the records.

Health threat
By destroying the records, Oson threatened the health of patients who visited the clinic immediately after the attack, prosecutors argued. They cited two examples, including a nine-year-old who had been diagnosed with an ear infection several days before Oson's rampage. When he returned a few weeks later, doctors had no record of the previous diagnosis, and they also had no idea he was due for a routine physical exam.

"Patients who visited the clinic in the weeks following the network disruption were kept waiting hours and sometimes futilely while their charts were located and delivered to the appropriate clinic and doctor," prosecutors said in court documents. "With the shutdown of its Practice Management system, NCHS had to shift to a paper-based system."

After ransacking his former employer's network, Oson took pains to cover his tracks. When FBI agents raided his home in May 2006, they found all but one of his PCs had been wiped clean, irretrievably destroying data that might have shown he was behind the attacks.

But Oson slipped up and left other clues. One was an HP 2100 LaserJet printer he kept at his home and another was an HP LaserJet 4M printer physically located near the workstation Oson used at his new job.

It just so happened that in the weeks leading up to the data meltdown, an intruder had cased the network by logging in from at least three different machines. One was a computer named "TEMP3" that was equipped to work with an HP 2100 LaserJet printer. A second PC happened to contain drivers for the HP 2100 and a LaserJet 4M.

Even more incriminating, the nickname of this second PC was "kuku" and one of the printers it was configured to work with was named "mike2003 HP Laserjet 4M". That just happened to match the name of Oson's son and the network name of the printer sitting by his workstation.

"At the sentencing hearing, the court talked about the impact of Oson's actions and his arrogance," Assistant US Attorney Mitchell Dembin, who prosecuted the case, wrote in an email to The Reg. "The court said that Oson seemed to think that he was the smartest guy around but, as often happens, he ran into someone smarter (the FBI)."

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[QUOTE]To mark the release of the new title, Shuttle, in co-operation with ATARI, is running a great competition. Up for grabs is a Shuttle XPC in exclusive Alone in the Dark design, which more than caters for the game

You find some odd things in End User License Agreements (EULAs) - if you can be bothered to wade through the small print. Deep within Apple's iTunes EULA you'll find the following:

"Licensee also agrees that Licensee will not use the Apple Software for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons."

It must take a creative terrorist to convert iTunes into a weapon, although perhaps the American military has set a precedent. It allegedly found that prisoners quickly spilled their terrorist secrets when made to listen to Neil Diamond records.

The iTunes EULA demonstrates that there are interesting things to be found buried deep within all of that legalese. Just ask Doug Heckman, a man who decided to read a PC Pitstop program EULA before he installed the software. That agreement included a clause offering 'financial compensation' to licensees who read the license agreement. Heckman emailed PC Pitstop and was promptly rewarded with a cheque for $1000.

An Irish soldier has told the Ennis conspiracy to murder trial that he filled out an application form on a website called Hitman for Hire because he thought it was an internet joke.

23-year-old Brian Buckley from Finglas is giving evidence in the trial of Sharon Collins and Essam Eid.

Ms Collins denies hiring Mr Eid through the internet to kill her partner PJ Howard and his two sons.

Mr Buckley described to the Central Criminal Court that he had been on his mother's computer in 2006 looking for cheats for a computer game called Hitman when he came across a website called Hitman for Hire.

He clicked on the website and was shown an animation of a cartoon hitman - a man wearing sunglasses and holding a pistol. He said he never once considered it was real - he thought it was an internet joke.

He filled out a recruitment application form on the site 'out of curiosity and stupidity', he said. He gave a fictional list 'the length of his arm' of his weapons skills on the site and gave a false name.

He wrote on the form that he could use a handgun, rifle submachine gun, grenades, and had experience of basic booby traps and limited poison making experience. He later got a number of emails and phone calls from someone calling himself Tony Luciano, whom the prosecution allege is Essam Eid.

'Tony Luciano' said he had a job for Mr Buckley: 'Two males in Ireland, one in Spain, as soon as possible. Let us know. We will try to phone you.' Another email asked for Mr Buckley's help in getting some strong poison - it said one of them would be at Shannon and could not import it into the country. And he promised to pay.

Mr Buckley said initially he thought it was a joke and was curious to see what it was. But he became uneasy about the whole situation. He got a few phone calls from 'Tony' and fobbed him off telling him he had the wrong number.

He said he wanted to stay as far away as possible from the whole thing. He felt it was getting serious and did not want to have anything to do with it. He said in the end he did not see it as a joke but did not see it as serious either - it just seemed odd.