Subj: Emailed Secrets Will Be Found Out

David Petraeus ran the largest, best-funded, most capable intelligence service in the history of the world, but even he failed to learn the lesson learned long ago by small-time mobsters and corner drug dealers: If you want something to remain a secret, stay off the phones and—more important—stay off e-mail.

You have to presume that anything sent electronically can be discovered, duplicated, decoded, and undeleted—because it can. Digital files can be infinitely reproduced, and they leave a trail of data wherever they go.

General Petraeus was not entirely unaware of this. He did make some attempts to conceal his communication with his paramour, Paula Broadwell. But it wasn’t like he used NSA-level encryption and bounced his e-mails off 17 satellites to make them hard to trace (I’m not sure that would even work, but it always seems to do the trick in the movies).

No, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency set up a Gmail account under a pseudonym, which both he and Broadwell had the password to. They would write messages to each other but, instead of sending them, they would leave their hot-and-heavy missives in the drafts folder. By not transmitting them, there was no way to trace them back to a specific PC.

Except, of course, when Broadwell sent messages to that account. Whoops. That established a connection the FBI could follow, and led to the “secret” e-mails the two were sharing.

Petraeus and Broadwell could have taken things a step further by using an e-mail service that encrypts messages. With an encrypted e-mail, only the sender and the recipient would be able to read the contents—anyone else would see gibberish. Sites like Hushmail automatically encrypt messages, and downloadable software patches like GPG and Enigmail can encrypt messages on Gmail and other webmail sites. Sites like 10minutemail create e-mail addresses that can only be used for 10 minutes before the address expires.

But even these measures have loopholes. Encrypted messages have encoded content, but not address and subject information. So even though the main text may be garbled, an investigator could, for example, see that 39 messages were sent to the same person in one day, including one at 1:37 a.m. with the subject line “You just left—still cleaning the maple syrup off my chest.” At that point, does it even matter what was written in the e-mail?

There is a distinction made regarding who is trying to retrieve old electronic messages. The government—local, state, or federal—is bound by the Stored Communication Act, part of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (that’s not a typo). That means electronic communications less than 180 days old require a search warrant to be viewed by law enforcement. Messages older than 180 days, however, are able to be viewed by the government with a subpoena. (Except at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which includes parts of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The court ruled that the SCA is in violation of the Fourth Amendment and therefore even messages that are more than 180 days old require a search warrant.)

As for private investigations, like divorce attorneys’, the bar is much, much higher. “Private parties have a much harder time accessing e-mail than the government,” says Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a legal nonprofit. Private investigators may be able to access the header information on an e-mail (addressee and subject fields), but the content of the e-mails will remain off limits.

Even deleted messages are not always truly deleted. For starters, anything “deleted” off a local hard drive may still be recoverable by savvy law-enforcement technicians (most data are not really deleted on a hard drive, just overwritten). On many webmail services, you have the option to archive or delete messages, but even deleting them doesn’t banish them to oblivion. Here’s what Google’s (GOOG) Gmail help page says about deleted messages:

“Please be aware, residual copies of deleted messages and accounts may take up to 60 days to be deleted from our active servers and may remain in our backup systems for an additional period of time.”

The same can be true of instant messages and texts. In the case of the former, most IM programs let you choose whether you want to archive your conversations or not—retired (and not retired, in what appears to be the case of General John Allen) four-star generals may want to uncheck that box.

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Beating tax cheats key to Italy’s recovery plan

ROME (AP) — Good plumbers may be worth their weight in gold, but when one was spotted zipping around in a bright red Ferrari, Italian tax police were fast on his trail.

Stamping out entrenched tax evasion is crucial to Premier Mario Monti‘s quest to keep Italy from succumbing to the European debt crisis, and it is critical to fellow eurozone members in more dire straits, such as Greece and Spain — which are also notorious for making cheating the taxman a way of life.

Indeed, Greece’s international rescue creditors have been pressing Greece for two years to reform its ailing tax system, citing poor collection as a key factor keeping the country mired in crisis. In Spain, where tax fraud is rampant, as much as €90 billion ($ 150 billion) is lost each year to tax fraud — the equivalent of the country’s national debt, according to Spain’s main tax inspectors union.

To succeed in Italy, authorities will have to catch the legions of self-employed and small business owners who brazenly lie about their earnings, like the plumber in the eastern town of Pescara, who socked away undeclared income in 30 bank accounts, or a successful pastry shop owner in Calabria, who on his tax return claimed he was earning next to crumbs.

And those are the less sophisticated schemers.

Tax police officials say that wealthy Italians, their companies and foreigners who make their money in Italy are increasingly trying to avoid taxes by using such strategies as falsely declaring that their base of operations or residence is abroad.

Another daunting challenge is the so-called “submerged” economy, a term embracing Italians who declare only a fraction or nothing at all of their earnings — and dentists, lawyers, doctors and other big-earning professionals are frequently among the worst offenders.

Tax evasion of all types in Italy totals about euros 240 billion ($ 300 billion), or 15 percent of the country’s gross domestic product of €1.6 trillion ($ 2 trillion), tax police estimate. Winning the war on tax cheats could therefore more than wipe out the country’s budget deficit, which is expected to increase to euros 42 billion ($ 53 billion), or 2.6 percent of GDP this year. That would start knocking away at the nation’s colossal public debt of €2 trillion ($ 2.5 trillion), or 125 percent of GDP.

But “big international frauds are up,” lamented Lt. Col. Gianluca Campana, in charge of the income tax unit revenue protection office at the Guardia di Finanza, Italy’s financial police corps which reports to the Economy Ministry.

The entrenched practice by many cafes, eateries, hair dressers and similar small business of neglecting to give customers mandatory cash register receipts commonly grabs the attention in crackdowns on tax evasion in Italy.

But, cautioned Campana, “one false (big business) invoice can equal no cash register receipts for coffees for two months.”

Over all of 2011, the total of non-declared income discovered by tax police amounted to some €50 billion ($ 65 billion), of which some 20 percent was due to international tax evasion, he said. By comparison, in the first nine months of this year, tax police discovered some €40 billion in undeclared income, with 30 percent of that blamed on international tax evasion, Campana said.

With the economic crisis shrinking bottom lines, and Italy increasingly on the hunt for big-time evasion, especially by big businesses, “there is a tendency to move capital abroad, using maneuvers apparently legal but which really are not,” Campana said. A classic technique consists of declaring one’s formal residence abroad in tax havens like Monte Carlo. Also common are companies that clearly have their business base in Italy but claim it is abroad in countries with far lower tax brackets.

Campana is armed with three degrees, including a masters in tax law from Milan’s Bocconi University, the prestigious economics institute formerly headed by Monti. He brings skills to this specialized police corps that are as finely tuned as sharp-shooting.

“We are going after the big cases (of evasion) in order to rake in more money,” Campana said.

The Ferrari-driving plumber hid some €2 million ($ 2.6 million) of his income over several years by giving his customers invoices — for jobs ranging from fixing leaks to installing new bathrooms — for the actual cost of his work, but kept a second, false registry of much lower figures for tax purposes, said Pescara tax police Col. Mauro Odorisio.

Armed with a 2008 law, authorities confiscated assets belonging to the plumber equivalent to the approximately €1 million ($ 1.3 million) they contend he owed in taxes, Odorisio said.

With Ferraris in red or yellow, and snazzy Porsches parked inside, Guardia di Finanza garages practically resemble luxury car dealerships.

The cars get sold to help recoup unpaid taxes and interest.

Overall, tax revenues in Italy were up by 4.1 percent, says the Economy Ministry, when comparing figures from the first eight months of 2012 with the same period in 2011, but much of that was due to new taxes, and not necessarily a revolution in citizens’ consciences about tax obligations.

Monti’s recipe relies heavily on taxes that are nearly impossible to avoid, such as sales tax. He also revived a property tax that his populist predecessor, Premier Silvio Berlusconi, had abolished in a promise to voters.

The ministry’s report last month noted that the property tax figured prominently in the “tendency toward growth” in tax revenues. But sales tax revenue dropped slightly despite higher sales tax rates, indicating that consumers were feeling the pinch of the stagnant economy.

The heavier fiscal burden seems to have driven some honest citizens to rebel against the engrained culture of tax evasion.

The number of phone calls from the public to the tax police’s hotline to report stores, restaurants and other businesses that didn’t give customers sales receipts has almost doubled in the first nine months of this year, compared with the same period in 2011.

It’s apparently dawning on Italians that shirking taxes in the end only costs them, in terms of ever-higher levies and cutbacks in public services.

Citizens now increasingly understand that “the lack of revenue over time caused by tax evaders forced the government to stiffen the tax burden on categories where you can’t evade taxes,” Campana said, referring to workers whose taxes are deducted from paychecks. Another area where evasion is close to impossible is real estate ownership.

Odorisio noted the crackdown included extending the statute of limitations on tax evasion from six to eight years and establishing prison as a penalty for big-time evasion.

Other weapons include a measure promoted by the Monti government that limits cash payments to no more than €1,000. Paying by credit card or personal check is a relatively new habit for Italians, who are used to carrying wads of cash in their pockets, even for big-ticket items like home renovations or vacations.

Past governments in Italy sometimes resorted to tax amnesties to try to boost revenues. But critics, contending some Italians counted on such a possibility, described that strategy as only perpetuating the tax cheat culture.

Spain hasn’t had much success with its own tax amnesty introduced by the conservative government in March. That measure, expiring soon, allows undeclared assets or those hidden in tax havens to be repatriated by paying a 10 percent tax without criminal penalty. The amnesty is estimated to recuperate far less than the expected €2.5 billion ($ 3.25 billion).

Greece saw demands for tax system reform from international rescue creditors added on to conditions for future rescue loan payments, as Greek authorities acknowledged that a high-profile campaign to crack down on major tax cheats has produced disappointing results.

The cash-strapped government over the last 10 months recovered just €19 million ($ 25 million) of the €13 billion ($ 17 billion) of arrears on the list. A prominent Greek magazine publisher recently tapped anger over rich tax evaders by publishing a list of people allegedly holding Swiss bank accounts. He was acquitted this month of breaching privacy laws.

Meanwhile, Italian tax police are chasing after cheats who have shown some of the most chutzpah about not paying their fair share of taxes, like the Padua woman who advertised on the Internet that she had a couple of “cash-only” bed and breakfast rooms to let.

Tax police discovered the lodgings are part of an apartment in public housing she was given after falsely declaring she was indigent on her annual tax forms.

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AP reporters Derek Gatopoulos in Athens and Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed to this report.

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Liza Minnelli to guest star on TV musical drama “Smash”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Liza Minnelli will guest star on an episode of TV musical drama “Smash,” NBC said on Tuesday.

The singer and actress will play herself and sing a number in one episode of the show when it returns in February 2013. The series, starring Debra Messing, Anjelica Huston and Katharine McPhee, dramatizes the backstage life of writers, producers and actors working to create a Broadway musical about Marilyn Monroe.

“Liza Minnelli is the essence of a multi-talented, singular show business sensation, particularly for her extraordinary contributions to Broadway,” Robert Greenblatt, the president of NBC Entertainment, said in a statement.

“So what could be more fitting than to have her legendary talent on a show that celebrates a world Liza has dazzled for decades?” he added

The daughter of director Vincente Minnelli and Hollywood legend Judy Garland, Minnelli, 66, is one of a handful of stars to have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony award.

She is best-known for her portrayal of Sally Bowles in the musical “Cabaret.” She is also expected to revive her role as Lucille on the upcoming fourth season of “Arrested Development,” which is slated to air on Netflix after being canceled by Fox in 2006.

NBC has moved the second season of “Smash” from Monday to Tuesday night, starting on February 5, 2013.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; editing by Jill Serjeant and Matthew Lewis)

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Cellphones may get smaller Holiday lift: Gartner

(Reuters) – The pre-Christmas shopping season is likely to boost cellphone sales less that usual this year as a weaker global economy forces consumers to cut back, research firm Gartner said on Wednesday.

“It will be a cautious quarter. Consumers are either cautious with their spending or finding new gadgets like tablets, as more attractive presents,” Gartner analysts said.

Gartner said sales of cellphones declined 3 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, falling for the third quarter in a row, while sales of smartphones grew 47 percent.

Smartphone growth this year is boosted by strong demand in China, where annual sales will grow to 165-170 million from 78 million a year earlier, it said.

“There is huge growth coming from the Chinese market,” said Gartner analyst Anshul Gupta.

This is helping local players to climb in global cellphone rankings, with ZTE, Huawei and TCL now among the seven largest cellphone vendors globally, Gartner said.

Samsung Electronics continues to lead the global cellphone sales ranking, ahead of Nokia and Apple. In smartphone sales Nokia, which still lead the market early last year, dropped to No 7, Gartner said.

(Reporting By Tarmo Virki)

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Britain condemned for “mad house” schizophrenia care system

LONDON (Reuters) – Patients with schizophrenia in Britain are too often locked up in “mad house” institutions that are more likely to make them worse than better, mental health experts said on Wednesday.

In a damning report on how people with the severe mental illness are cared for in Britain, the experts said there were “catastrophic failings” in treatment and described “shameful” standards of care on some mental health wards.

The problems arise and are exacerbated in part by public misconceptions that schizophrenics are crazy, violent people who pose a risk to society, they said.

“In this country we’ve become preoccupied with the idea that schizophrenia means a madman with an axe,” Robin Murray, a professor of psychiatric research at Britain’s Institute of Psychiatry, told reporters as the report was published.

The reality, he said, was that the vast majority of people with schizophrenia were not violent and were in fact more likely to be victims of attacks than to lash out at others.

He said Britain could learn a lot from countries such as Switzerland, the Netherlands and Denmark, where health systems focused on getting patients with schizophrenia into calm, caring environments, rather than spending limited funds on unnecessary security and less appropriate treatment.

Schizophrenia affects around 24 million people globally, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Patients can suffer from psychotic experiences such as delusions, paranoia, or hearing voices.

Although there is no cure and relatively little is known about its causes, there are many medicines and therapies that can treat some of the most serious symptoms.

The WHO estimates the costs of treating someone with chronic schizophrenia can be as low as $ 2 a month. But across the world, including in developed countries like Britain, many patients have limited access to treatment. The WHO says more than half of all schizophrenia sufferers do not get appropriate care.

“ABANDONED ILLNESS”

The British report, which described schizophrenia as “the abandoned illness”, found that nursing and other healthcare staff working in schizophrenia services in the country’s state-funded National Health Service were often demoralised and “burnt out” and that “pessimism pervades the system”.

It was written by a panel of mental health specialists known as the Schizophrenia Commission who heard evidence in person from 80 experts and people affected by the illness, and from 2,500 more who gave evidence online.

It said mental health hospital wards were often such appalling places they made patients worse rather than better.

“If you develop psychosis and your mind is disturbed … and you think people are against you, you’d want to be admitted for a period of care and respite and calm and some gentle pharmacological and psychological treatments,” said Murray.

“But in fact that doesn’t happen. Here, you get admitted to a mad house. And some of these places are very anti-therapeutic – not only for patients but also for staff. No sensible person would want to be admitted to one of these places.”

Paul Jenkins, chief executive of the charity Rethink Mental Illness, said it was a “scandal” that in 2012 people with schizophrenia were dying 15 to 20 years earlier than the general population and that only 7 percent were able to get a job.

“Too many people are falling through the gaps in the system and ending up in prison or homeless,” he said.

An analysis by researchers at the London School of Economics (LSE), which formed part of the report, estimated schizophrenia costs the UK 11.8 billion pounds ($ 18.7 billion) a year in “societal” costs including care and treatment, loss of employment, tax revenue, unpaid care and premature deaths.

Martin Knapp, professor of social policy at LSE who carried out the analysis, said too much was spent on expensive types of care – secure units – and not enough on trying to prevent schizophrenia and provide community support for patients.

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of mental health charity SANE, said: “The real scandal is that despite all the pledges of successive governments, (schizophrenia) patients are daily being deprived of hospital beds, except on remaining wards which can be so shabby and chaotic they make their conditions worse.” ($ 1 = 0.6302 British pounds)

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Pravin Char)

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Head of Microsoft’s Windows unit steps down

(Reuters) – Microsoft Corp said the head of its flagship Windows division and the driving force behind Windows 8, Steven Sinofsky, will be leaving the company with immediate effect, days after the software giant launched the Surface tablet.

Sinofsky, who presented at the launch of the Windows 8 operating system in New York City last month, will be succeeded by Julie Larson-Green, who will head the Windows hardware and software division, the company said in a statement.

Tami Reller will remain chief financial officer and chief marketing officer and will assume responsibility for the business of Windows.

Both executives will report directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Microsoft said.

At the launch event in October, Sinofsky and his team showed off a range of devices running Windows 8 from PC makers such as Lenovo Group Ltd and Acer Inc, but devoted most of their energy to the second half of the presentation and the Surface tablet, the first computer Microsoft has made itself.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad and Nicola Leske; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

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Glitch prevents trading in over 200 stocks on the NYSE

NEW YORK (Reuters) – NYSE Euronext on Monday suspended trading in over 200 stocks on the New York Stock Exchange due to a technical problem with a server, though the stocks in question were still trading actively on other markets.

There will be no closing auctions in the affected stocks, and a list of the official closing prices for the securities, based on the consolidated last sale, will be distributed via email and NYSE’s website, the exchange operator said.

NYSE first alerted traders it was having problems with one of its cash equity matching engines at 9:38 a.m., and it said it would not publish quotes on a total of 216 stocks, including CVS Caremark Corp and Lazard Ltd .

Nasdaq OMX Group , BATS Global Markets and Direct Edge exchanges stopped sending orders to the NYSE, declaring “self help” against the exchange.

“Orders were coming in, but those who were issuing the orders were not getting their confirmations or their reports, so we felt it was best to zero it out, if you will, and then to suspend trading of those stocks on our market,” said Rich Adamonis, an NYSE spokesman.

NYSE said that any open orders should be considered canceled.

Adamonis said the server issues were still being investigated at around 3 p.m., but said they came as the issues were being moved over to a new trading platform.

NYSE is in the process of moving all of its markets – including bonds, options, futures and cash equities – in the United States and Europe to a universal electronic trading platform.

The New York-based company’s European markets have been fully integrated with the new system, and the exchange is now in the process of moving over its roughly 3,800 U.S. cash equities issues to the new platform, with about 800 having been migrated so far, Adamonis said.

The migration will continue to be rolled out through the rest of the year, he added.

(Reporting By John McCrank; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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General investigated for emails to Petraeus friend

PERTH, Australia (AP) — In a new twist to the Gen. David Petraeus sex scandal, the Pentagon said Tuesday that the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, is under investigation for alleged “inappropriate communications” with a woman who is said to have received threatening emails from Paula Broadwell, the woman with whom Petraeus had an extramarital affair.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a written statement issued to reporters aboard his aircraft, en route from Honolulu to Perth, Australia, that the FBI referred the matter to the Pentagon on Sunday.

Panetta said that he ordered a Pentagon investigation of Allen on Monday.

A senior defense official traveling with Panetta said Allen’s communications were with Jill Kelley, who has been described as an unpaid social liaison at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., which is headquarters to the U.S. Central Command. She is not a U.S. government employee.

Kelley is said to have received threatening emails from Broadwell, who is Petraeus’ biographer and who had an extramarital affair with Petraeus that reportedly began after he became CIA director in September 2011.

Petraeus resigned as CIA director on Friday.

Allen, a four-star Marine general, succeeded Petraeus as the top American commander in Afghanistan in July 2011.

The senior official, who discussed the matter only on condition of anonymity because it is under investigation, said Panetta believed it was prudent to launch a Pentagon investigation, although the official would not explain the nature of Allen’s problematic communications.

The official said 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails and other documents from Allen’s communications with Kelley between 2010 and 2012 are under review. He would not say whether they involved sexual matters or whether they are thought to include unauthorized disclosures of classified information. He said he did not know whether Petraeus is mentioned in the emails.

“Gen. Allen disputes that he has engaged in any wrongdoing in this matter,” the official said. He said Allen currently is in Washington.

Panetta said that while the matter is being investigated by the Defense Department Inspector General, Allen will remain in his post as commander of the International Security Assistance Force, based in Kabul. He praised Allen as having been instrumental in making progress in the war.

The FBI’s decision to refer the Allen matter to the Pentagon rather than keep it itself, combined with Panetta’s decision to allow Allen to continue as Afghanistan commander without a suspension, suggested strongly that officials viewed whatever happened as a possible infraction of military rules rather than a violation of federal criminal law.

Allen was Deputy Commander of Central Command, based in Tampa, prior to taking over in Afghanistan. He also is a veteran of the Iraq war.

In the meantime, Panetta said, Allen’s nomination to be the next commander of U.S. European Command and the commander of NATO forces in Europe has been put on hold “until the relevant facts are determined.” He had been expected to take that new post in early 2013, if confirmed by the Senate, as had been widely expected.

Panetta said President Barack Obama was consulted and agreed that Allen’s nomination should be put on hold. Allen was to testify at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Panetta said he asked committee leaders to delay that hearing.

NATO officials had no comment about the delay in Allen’s appointment.

“We have seen Secretary Panetta‘s statement,” NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said in Brussels. “It is a U.S. investigation.”

Panetta also said he wants the Senate Armed Services Committee to act promptly on Obama’s nomination of Gen. Joseph Dunford to succeed Allen as commander in Afghanistan. That nomination was made several weeks ago. Dunford’s hearing is also scheduled for Thursday.

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Associated Press writer Slobodan Lekic in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

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Australia’s INXS calls it quits as touring band after 35 years

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian rock group INXS has called it quits as a live touring band after 35 years, thanking fans and honoring late frontman Michael Hutchence in a statement on Tuesday.

INXS, which sold more than 30 million albums worldwide, including more than 10 million alone of their 1987 breakthrough “Kick”, issued the statement after comments by band member Jon Farriss during a weekend performance sparked a frenzy on Twitter.

“We understand that this must come as a blow to everybody, but all things must eventually come to an end,” INXS members Tim, Andrew and Jon Farriss, Kirk Pengilly and Garry Beers said. “We have been performing as a band for 35 years, it’s time to step away from the touring arena.”

“Our music will of course live on and we will always be a part of that,” they added.

INXS was one of the biggest touring bands of the 1980s and 1990s, playing to 80,000 at Wembley Stadium in London and 120,000 in Rio De Janeiro.

But the death of charismatic lead singer Hutchence in 1997 was a major blow.

A U.S. TV talent show for a new frontman was won by Canadian J.D. Fortune, while Terence Trent D’Arby and Jon Stevens also had a turn at the microphone. Irishman Ciaran Gribbin was the last to take the role.

Farriss, the band’s drummer, set the Internet abuzz on Sunday night after he told the audience during a support performance for U.S. band Matchbox Twenty in Perth that it was the last time INXS would perform together. Saxophone player Pengilly later told a radio station the band was not breaking up.

The group declined to comment further on Tuesday.

(Reporting By Grace Williams, editing by Elaine Lies)

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Australia’s INXS calls it quits as touring band after 35 years

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian rock group INXS has called it quits as a live touring band after 35 years, thanking fans and honoring late frontman Michael Hutchence in a statement on Tuesday.

INXS, which sold more than 30 million albums worldwide, including more than 10 million alone of their 1987 breakthrough “Kick”, issued the statement after comments by band member Jon Farriss during a weekend performance sparked a frenzy on Twitter.

“We understand that this must come as a blow to everybody, but all things must eventually come to an end,” INXS members Tim, Andrew and Jon Farriss, Kirk Pengilly and Garry Beers said. “We have been performing as a band for 35 years, it’s time to step away from the touring arena.”

“Our music will of course live on and we will always be a part of that,” they added.

INXS was one of the biggest touring bands of the 1980s and 1990s, playing to 80,000 at Wembley Stadium in London and 120,000 in Rio De Janeiro.

But the death of charismatic lead singer Hutchence in 1997 was a major blow.

A U.S. TV talent show for a new frontman was won by Canadian J.D. Fortune, while Terence Trent D’Arby and Jon Stevens also had a turn at the microphone. Irishman Ciaran Gribbin was the last to take the role.

Farriss, the band’s drummer, set the Internet abuzz on Sunday night after he told the audience during a support performance for U.S. band Matchbox Twenty in Perth that it was the last time INXS would perform together. Saxophone player Pengilly later told a radio station the band was not breaking up.

The group declined to comment further on Tuesday.

(Reporting By Grace Williams, editing by Elaine Lies)

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