In the 90 days since Kerry promised on national television to sign the form releasing his military records, the following milestones have been achieved:

* a pen has been procured from a Walmart on the outskirts of Little Rock "for substantially less than the $12,000 budgeted";
* a special committee has been formed to discuss the best way to remove the cap from the pen;
* a copy of the notoriously difficult to obtain form has been located on eBay and bidding is underway; and
* a "Dinner With John" fundraising extravaganza is in the works to obtain the necessary postage to mail the signed form, should such a step be required.

A Web site claiming close ties to Al-Qaida has announced that the leader of the international terror network, Osama bin Laden, is dead, the London-based Arabic daily Asharq Al Awsat reported Friday.

The claim has not been confirmed.

The number of secret court-authorized wiretaps across the country surged by 19 percent last year, according to court records which also showed that not a single application was denied.

Bottom Line: type the Web site domain name manually into your browser or use a bookmark. A healthy dose of paranoia is the best defense.

Today’s headlines scream about phishing attacks that are stealing financial data, bilking billions from consumers, and contributing to identity theft. These news articles are soon followed by vendor press releases and dubious marketing propaganda seeking to capitalize on the buzzword hysteria.

Security professionals are left trying to separate the truth from the hype while looking to SSL, token authentication, e-mail encryption, A/V scanners, blacklist and take-down services for solutions. Each incident usually gets management very excited about protecting their customers and the brand.

Meanwhile, while gleefully jumping from foot to foot, the Phishers are having the last laugh because they know something you don’t: None of this stuff actually works anyway. At least not for phishing scams. Don’t get me wrong. These solutions have their time and place, just not when it comes to phishing and I’m here to tell you why.

NEW images of an object five times the mass of Jupiter confirm it is a giant planet closely orbiting a distant star, astronomers believe.

A drug derived from the saliva of the Gila monster lizard was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday as a way for type 2 diabetics to better control their blood sugar levels.