Spencer F. Katt

Its time to say, Yes, ICANN,” proclaimed the Puss upon hearing that ICANN President and CEO Stuart Lynn has announced plans to retire. “Call ICANN Chairman Vint Cerf and tell him his search is over,” laughed the Lynx. “Whos more qualified than me to fill that position?” As the Katts cronies debated whether a vast […]

Spencer chuckled when he saw that a small Portland, Ore., company named ExitExchange had a patent pending for the pop-under ad technology that seems to appear on virtually every Web site these days. Sure, the company can now potentially charge a licensing fee to anyone using pop-under ads, but the Kitty thinks it may be […]

Some weeks, El Gatos e-mail seems to be evenly split between spam and letters complaining about spam. A Katt crony recently laughed with the Lynx about perhaps the most ludicrous spam ever—unsolicited, multiple mailings offering recipients a secret way to “Stop Spam Now!” The Katt has also noticed that much of the spam hes receiving […]

Whenever the Kitty is at a conference in Vegas, he always gets a hoot out of watching the geekarazzi sweating like lawn sprinklers at the sight of the scantily clad dancers and booth babes that adorn the floor at the Las Vegas Convention Center. At last weeks NetWorld+Interop, Panda Software found a novel way to […]

Other than those walking the secret halls of the National Security Agency, James Bamford, author of two books on the NSA, probably knows more about the agency than anyone else. During a recent speech at the Computers Freedom and Privacy Conference, Bamford claimed that the NSA has created a small side business out of shredding […]

His hirsuteness hears that a company named Xchange Dispute Resolution has been falsely identifying itself as an ICANN-authorized arbitrator in mailings that try to scare recipients into believing their domain name ownership is in dispute. The notice tells recipients they must mail a security deposit, which can range from $250 to $1,250, to Xchange to […]

Well, another April 15 has come and gone, and El Gato assumes most Americans have put fear of the tax man behind them. “Yes,” cackled the Kitty, “now its time to crack open a cold one and see how much spyware your tax preparation software has hidden on your PC!” As Spencer kicked back, he […]

Given the litigious society we live in, El Gato found himself pondering what legal options he could exercise against Sun after it announced its Starkitty Unix server. “When anyone in the tech industry hears the words star and kitty in the same sentence, its yours truly who comes to mind and not a 52-processor machine,” […]

At a time when people are still trying to figure out how to effectively use the Internet as a business tool, El Gato thinks the industry may have finally latched onto something—Web sites designed just to slam the competition! Just recently, opposing camps in the battle over the HP-Compaq merger used competing Web sites to […]

Given the economic climate, it seems any announcement from the Federal Reserve garners scrutiny from the world. The Kitty wonders, though, whether anyone besides bankers has noted the Feds announcement that its FedLine service has discontinued plans to adopt Windows NT. More than 10,000 financial institutions use the DOS-based FedLine to transfer billions of dollars […]

The mouser was amused at the CTIA wireless show in Orlando, Fla., last week. The headliner for the events annual gala was Jerry Seinfeld, who did his usual analysis of the inane. He had a great time overtly flinging the cord of his microphone around the stage while he stood under a gigantic “Wireless Lifestyles” […]

Whats in a name?” pondered the puss. “A lot, if the name has earned a reputation as a slow-moving commodity vendor.” Why, then, is e-service provider Cable and Wireless quietly renaming its Digital Island subsidiary to that of its newly acquired Web hosting biz, Exodus Communications? After all, thought the Kitty, Digital Island has a […]