18th May 2000 Archive

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OS bug survey shows Linux, Win NT in dead heat

Vulnerability laurel wreath up for grabs this year

A statistical survey of operating system vulnerabilities from SecurityFocus shows that the much-maligned Windows-NT is only marginally buggier than the beloved and putatively superior Linux. Solaris gets very decent marks for security, with six vulnerabilities reported this year to date, compared with 30 for Linux and 34 for …

Business 18 May 2000, 09:50
Bill Clinton associates Love Bug with terrorism

Osama bin Ladin to visit an inbox near you soon

Commander-in-Chief Bill Clinton fretted about cyber-security during a US Coast Guard Academy commencement speech which he delivered in Connecticut today. "This is a highly appropriate place to give what is, for me, a very nostalgic address. It is the last speech I will ever give as President to a graduating class of one of our …

Business 18 May 2000, 09:50
Love Bug suspects can't be charged

State counsel says fraud law doesn't apply

The Philippine Department of Justice has ruled that a law invoked against suspects in the Love Bug e-mail worm case can't be stretched to apply to hacking, the Associated Press reports. The decision will hamstring investigators, who were forced to scramble to find a basis to charge the suspects, since hacking is not a crime …

Business 18 May 2000, 09:50
Linux goes Big Iron

Any old big iron?

IBM has announced the availability of Linux running natively on its S/390 mainframes, although general availability won't be until the autumn. SuSE and TurboLinux are acting as distributors and first call of support for potential users. Linux can either takes advantage of the mainframe's logical partitions to run natively, or …

Business 18 May 2000, 09:50
L0pht uncovers Office 2000 ActiveX security hole

And M$ shouts to all you lovely White Hats out there

An ActiveX control in Micro$oft Office 2000 named "Office UA Control" used to script demonstrations for Office 2000 Help can be used to script almost any action that a user could perform from the keyboard, an advisory from L0pht Heavy Industries says. The ActiveX control is "incorrectly marked as 'safe for scripting,'" Micro$ …

Business 18 May 2000, 09:50
Don't delay MS breakup, government tells judge

MS on Trial Opens fire on Microsoft 'transparent' delaying tactics

As expected the US government has urged the judge to toss Microsoft's proposed remedies out, but it is also pushing hard to have the company strung up sooner, rather than later. In a 70 page filing to the court yesterday the DoJ and states described Microsoft's request for a delay of up to six months as "a transparent effort to …

Business 18 May 2000, 09:50
Net privacy a tangled skein – FTC committee

On the one hand; on the other hand...

A US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) committee charged with making broad Net privacy recommendations can't seem to step forward with any solid conclusions on the issues. After months of debate, several interim reports, a period of public commentary, and deep deliberations, the forty-member panel has generated a final report with …

Business 18 May 2000, 09:50
Dobedo.com ruled offensive by watchdog

And more tales from the murky world of IT advertising

Once a month the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) produces a report on the complaints it has dealt with and once a month we get to learn about the dodgy tricks that IT companies have used to sell more boxes. All the cases below have been upheld by the ASA and we hope that they're all ashamed. Dobedo.com Aiming at 16 to …

Business 18 May 2000, 09:50
SGI to shower shareholders with MIPS stock

SGI to shower shareholders with MIPS stock

Troubled SGI is to rid itself of its remaining shares in MIPS, the processor company it founded and spun off some years back, in a move not unlike 3Com's upcoming Palm Computer stock giveaway. SGI currently owns some 25 million-odd MIPS shares, which amount to 65 per cent of the semiconductor company. SGI plans to distribute …

Business 18 May 2000, 10:37
ICO emerges from Chapter 11…

...only to be subsumed by Teledesic real soon now

Satellite networking company ICO Global Communications - or New ICO, as we're now supposed to call it - has thrown aside its Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Actually, we're probably going to have to call it ICO Teledesic. As we predicted last year, having invested a pile of money - a cool $1.2 billion - into ICO, Teledesic …

Business 18 May 2000, 11:01
Sun hits back at Unix vendors' FUD

WildFire is a Skoda, competitors running frit

The propaganda war waged by HP, IBM and Compaq against Sun has caused a senior executive at McNealy's firm to rebut claims that it is misleading customers. Far from his company misleading customers, said Chris Sarfas, UK product manager at Sun Microsystems, the other Unix vendors were effectively pulling the wool over the eyes …

Business 18 May 2000, 11:03
FSA hit squad probes for dodgy financial sites

Trying to mislead consumers?

The FSA is to probe more than 50 Web sites targeting UK users following an undercover "surf day" into Internet scams. A top surveillance squad of 31 FSA staff spent a day browsing more than 600 sites for signs of dodgy financial market activity. The search turned up 53 sites that warranted "further investigation", with the FSA …

Business 18 May 2000, 11:05
Handspring files for cautious IPO

Aims to raise over $190 million with eight per cent stake sale

Palm clone maker Handspring disclosed details of its cautiously optimistic IPO this week. It will offer ten million shares - eight per cent of the company - priced between $19 and $22, which is just under what Palm itself is currently trading at (around $26) following the April collapse of hi-tech stocks. The IPO - whenever it …

Business 18 May 2000, 11:43
MS claims breakup will kill next-generation Windows project

MS on Trial But this time, it's possibly right

In an extraordinary covert filing by Microsoft in the antitrust case, the company claims that it would be too risky to develop Next Generation Windows Services if Microsoft is split into two companies. The exact wording is: "Microsoft cannot undertake such a risky venture [developing NGWS], which will cost more in constant- …

Business 18 May 2000, 11:50
Dell plans for Red Hat Linux Itanium boxes get disappeared

Shush - keep building them, but don't tell Bill

Yesterday Dell announced, and then swiftly unannounced, that it would be in the first wave of companies delivering servers and workstations based on Itanium. It didn't exactly say that these would run Red Hat Linux, but given the context (a Red Hat press release) that was kind of implied. So what happened? The Register's beady …

Business 18 May 2000, 11:51
Fujitsu Siemens: ‘Everyone’ wants Win2k for IA-64

No one interested in Monterey, apparently

Fujitsu Siemens yesterday rebranded its server products in a bid to establish a global presence. Intel-based products will now carry the Primergy label, while the company's Unix offerings will be named Primepower. The thinking being that Fujitsu will use the brand in APAC, Amdahl in the US, and Fujitsu Siemens in Europe. The …

Business 18 May 2000, 12:02
New Rambus validation service from Kingston

We know it's valid, how about making it cheaper?

With Intel's blessing, Kingston Technology has set up a new independent testing lab, Advanced Validation Laboratories (AVL) to help DRAM manufacturers, PC OEMs, motherboard manufacturers, system integrators, and module manufacturers bring their products to market faster. "The one-stop validation service will enable faster time- …

Business 18 May 2000, 14:00