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Some good may yet come of the Enron abuses and the Martha Stewart scandal, at least for those who still own stock in big corporations. A new Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule going into effect next week will require all stock purchases and sales by officers, directors and anyone who owns 10 percent or more of a company to make an electronic filing, available to the public. Such e-filings had been voluntary under the old system, but nearly 95 percent of transactions were still being done via paper. Those forms, which number up to 250,000 per year, could be sent after insider transactions took place. The new system requires disclosures to be filed within two days, compared to the paper deadline of 40 days. Congress hopes that the new system will allow the public to assume a watchdog role so that situations like Enron can be avoided.
Alleged al-Jazeera flag hacker apprehended
There’s showing your patriotism and there’s breaking the law. John William Racine may have done the latter while attempting the former. Federal prosecutors say Racine, aka John Buffo, was the hacker who messed with the al-Jazeera site shortly after the war with Iraq began in March. Racine allegedly pretended to be a networking contact and made several communications with host Network Solutions, even going so far as to fake an ID to gain the al-Jazeera site password. He then set up his own site to read “Let Freedom Ring” with an accompanying American flag. Visitors were redirected there when attempting to access the Arab television network's site on March 25. Racine’s alleged hijinks didn’t end there, though. He also intercepted roughly 300 emails intended for al-Jazeera.
New from MLB.com: Buy the instant classics
Major League Baseball is experimenting with a new program that would allow fans to catch up on historic games, for a small fee. MLB.com’s Digital Classic offers a download of an entire game that can be burned to a CD or watched via computer for $3.95. Wednesday’s wild game between the New York Yankees and Houston Astros, in which the Astros patched together a no-hitter with six pitchers, was the first game to become available. More than 200 fans have purchased it. Friday’s Yankees game, in which Roger Clemens earned win No. 300 against the St. Louis Cardinals, became the second download available. More than 190 fans already had prepaid for the game by Thursday afternoon.
'2 Fast' overtakes 'Matrix' as top web movie draw
It’s still behind at the box office, but the site for the new movie “2 Fast, 2 Furious” has overtaken the site for “Matrix Reloaded” as No. 1 on the web. The film opened June 6, and in the week leading up to it, Hitwise reports that U.S. visits to the site zoomed up by 214 percent. It was the first time that the site had moved ahead of “Matrix” in the Hitwise Entertainment-Movies category, boasting 1.84 percent of all visits. The engines and babes movie, not surprisingly, attracted more men than women. Sixty-one percent of “2 Fast’s” site visitors were men. Many of the overall surfers, 35.2 percent, were referred by search engines. Ten percent were referred by targeted ad campaigns.
June 16, 2003© 2003 Media Life
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