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Howdy folks,

Thursday again? Where has the time all gone? In the spirit of the fast approaching weekend we'd love to share some of the interesting news we've found today in our scouring of the interwebs. They're all a little off the wall...just like us.

Read on, y'all...we promise there are some surprises in store!!

Microsoft Did What?
They RickRolled, that's what. Last year's Tech Ed conference in Australia was blithely supplying free Wi-Fi to it 2,500+ attendees when a few users started killing the network by torrenting large files. So what did network admins do? They built a list of all the users who were monopolizing the network and re-directed them to a local web server filled with RickRoll scripts. Then they were booted off the network.

The lesson behind the funny story here is that due to a couple of users all will suffer as the conference will probably shape network traffic or restrict use of a network that has always been available to everyone.

Still, we think it's pretty funny that a huge corporation stooped to these levels to make a point. Good going, guys.

Typos Make Google Money
We've all done it--we're typing fast, not paying attention, just trying to get to our normal websites and suddenly a permutation of the name is in our browser and we're left going "no, I meant expedia.com, not expendia." A paper released by Tyler Moore and Benjamin Edelman at Harvard University seeks to prove that ads placed on these "typosquatting" web sites could make Google hundreds of millions annually.

Google has said it will remove ads from typo domains if the real site's owner makes a fuss, but shouldn't they be protecting the interests of the people paying them to advertise their services correctly? If typosquatting really is making them $500 million a year in advertising we can see where it would be hard to take the moral high ground, but Google's usually so good at that.

The research is here, and pretty interesting if you care to go more in depth (funny enough, it's hosted on Google Docs).

Philly Students Sue School
As if we didn't have enough problems in our educational system, one school district in Philadelphia has made matters worse and egregiously so: they've been using school-issued laptops to spy on students and their families IN THEIR HOMES. A child reprimanded for "improper behavior in the home" was presented with a photo taken with the webcam of his laptop as evidence, and the result of the discipline was a class action suit brought on behalf of every kid who was given one of the machines.

The Lower Merion school district should have its hands full in the upcoming months but we don't see how this could result in anything but a victory for the kids and their families. In a society where we have placed personal privacy online in such high regard it is absolutely awful to have that privacy invaded, even in the name of student safety or whatever they'll call it.

What do you think? Tell us on Twitter.

Till Monday, Newsies...