Hello and welcome to the special Crime and Punishment edition of our weekly news quiz. This week, criminals broke into the e-mail account of America's favorite gun-toting hockey mom, a notorious spammer walked out of prison, and Seinfeld got booted from his Microsoft gig for reasons that, like the ad campaign itself, are still a little vague. Can you withstand our punishing questions? Prove it by taking the quiz. Correct answers are worth 10 points, and no, we don't have any photos of Sarah Palin in her birthday suit. Sorry. Let's begin.
1. Governor Sarah Palin's Yahoo mail got hacked and posted on the Net. Which one of the following is NOT a valid e-mail address for the would-be VP?
a. governor@gov.state.ak.us b. gov.sarah@yahoo.com c. gov.palin@yahoo.com d. gov.milf@yahoo.com
2. It's not an iPhone, but it might be the next best thing. T-Mobile's Android phone, called the HTC Dream, is scheduled to debut next week. What are these Google-powered handsets likely to cost?
$99
$149
$199
$249
3. Well that didn't last long. Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld are parting ways after just two not-entirely-well-received commercials for Microsoft. What reason did the company give for the breakup?
Jerry was just the warm-up act
He and Bill had "creative differences"
John Hodgman was available
One word: Rehab
4. According to Google Insights, which of the following terms is searched for more often on the Net?
Sex
MySpace
YouTube
5. One of the hackers charged in a massive retail hacking ring has agreed to help the prosecution. Which of these guys is singing like a canary?
Albert "Segvac" Gonzalez
Maksym "Maksik" Yastremskiy
Aleksandr "Jonny Hell" Suvorov
Damon Patrick Tohey
6. One of the many contenders for the title of "spam king" is a free man yet again, after convincing the Virginia Supreme Court to overturn his 2005 conviction. Which spammer was it?
Sanford Wallace
Robert Soloway
Jeremy Jaynes
Todd Moeller
7. So Best Buy snarfed up Napster. What was the former scourge of the recording industry worth to the big-box retailer?
$1.21 million
$12.1 million
$121 million
$1.21 billion
8. No, John McCain did not invent the BlackBerry, but one of his advisers seems to think he did. What is said adviser's name?
David Hyde Pierce
Douglas Holtz-Eakin
Damon Patrick Tohey
Leonard Pinth-Garnell
9. Internet access on U.S. airlines has barely taken flight, but it's already ruffling some feathers. What are people complaining about up there in the friendly skies?
Painfully slow connections
Wonky Wi-Fi networks
Not enough AC jacks
Passengers surfing porn
10. The math, she is time. Take the cost of that new Tesla electric car factory to be built in San Jose. Add the number of McDonald's where you can now fill up your Zune for free using the restaurant's Wi-Fi connection, rounded to the nearest hundred. Multiply that by the percentage of American youth who play video games, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Now supersize it. What do you get?
242,605,906
242,506,509
242,509,506
242,506,605
Answer key
Question 1: Which one of these isn't a legit e-mail address used by Sarah Palin?
10 points
Don't bother trying to reach the Lipstick Pit Bull, though; after news of the hack got out, Palin (or her handlers) canceled her Yahoo accounts. So far the disclosures have proved little, though they suggest Governor Palin may have been using private e-mail to conduct public business -- a no-no under state public disclosure laws.
Question 2: What are Dreams going for these days?
10 points
c. $199
Which is, not coincidentally, the same price as the iPhone 3G (aka the Jesus phone). We'll have to wait till next week to find out if it walks on water.
Question 3: Why did Microsoft drop the Bill and Jerry show two weeks after it began?
10 points
a. Jerry was just the warm-up act
Apparently, the company spent $10 million on Seinfeld just "to warm people up and get into the conversation a little more smoothly," Microsoft branding honcho David
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