23rd August 2001 Archive
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Inept would-be hacker gets three years in jail
Barclays blackmailer bungles blag
A man has been convicted of blackmail after he threatened to hack into the computers of Barclays Bank unless he was paid £200 000. Bungling blackmailer Stuart Kearns, 24, faces three years in prison after threatening the collapse of the computer system in the Barclays branch in Beckenham High Street and others in Barclays' …
Security 23 Aug 2001, 09:56
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Intel will ship DDR i845 chipset early
So say mobo, memory makers, despite Intel denials
Intel has officially denied that it plans to bring forward the release of the DDR version of its i845 chipset, but Taiwanese memory and mobo companies insist that that is exactly what the chip giant will do. We noted a week or so back that comments from Hynix suggested that Intel may well have brought the release of the DDR …
Channel 23 Aug 2001, 10:39
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Sony's next Clié – N750C, N760C or what?
Joke + speculation = confusion
The rumours surrounding Sony's next Clié, the N750C, which we reported on yesterday (see Sony to upgrade Palm-based PDA to 32-bit colour), are increasingly looking false, and news of an alternative upgrade - albeit a more modest one - aren't much more credible. The update to the N710C appears to be not the N750C but the N760C. …
Personal 23 Aug 2001, 10:40
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US GameCube launch delayed
Appearing 10 days after the Xbox
Nintendo is delaying the US launch of the GameCube by two weeks to make sure its got enough units ready to make a big impact. So after a summer in which we have heard any number of rumours claiming that the launch of Microsoft's Xbox console would be delayed by anything from manufacturing problems to trademark infringement, …
Games Industry 23 Aug 2001, 10:41
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Nanya begins bulk shipments of DDR333
Full-on production ramp despite state of memory market
Taiwanese memory maker Nanya has begun volume production of 128Mb and 256Mb 166MHz DDR333 SDRAM chips. Despite the slack demand for memory and the resulting collapse in DRAM prices, Nanya said it will continue to ramp up production through the rest of the year until DDR333 accounts for 20 per cent of the company's output. …
Channel 23 Aug 2001, 10:44
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Oftel bangs heads in LLU row
Whatever
Oftel has waded into the row between BT and rival telcos to set service levels and compensation rates for those wanting to unbundle local loops. The intervention should provide telcos with greater confidence as they embark on the business of providing telecoms services direct to customers. However, all the telcos contacted by …
Data Networking 23 Aug 2001, 10:54
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Net users demand ‘affordable’ access in Ireland
Pressure group takes initiative for change
An Internet pressure group is hoping that a meeting planned for next week will help kick-start the introduction of affordable Net access in Ireland. Showing that people power really can work, those behind Ireland Offline have succeeded in attracting a Government Minister plus top officials and executives from the telcoms and …
Music and Media 23 Aug 2001, 11:04
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VIA income falls well below expectations
Sales-boosting price cuts didn't boost sales enough
VIA performed rather more badly during its second fiscal quarter than analysts had been expecting it emerged yesterday after the company release its latest financial figures. Earlier this week five market watchers quizzed by Bloomberg reckoned VIA's Q2 profits would drop around 30 per cent. In the event, the chipset maker's …
Business 23 Aug 2001, 11:13
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VIA ‘scare tactics’ claim ups ante in war of words with Intel
Put up, shut up or go to court, we tell both parties
VIA today accused Intel of employing "scare tactics" to dissuade mobo makers and PC vendors from choosing its P4X266 Pentium 4 DDR SDRAM chipset. Behind the two companies' shenanigans is the old chipset chestnut: does VIA have the right to make and sell a Pentium 4 compatible chipset or not? VIA's accusation was part of a …
Channel 23 Aug 2001, 11:35
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Qwest tries to worm its way off hook for Code Red outages
Users see red over crashing DSL routers
Qwest has turned down request by Washington's state attorney to refund clients whose DSL connections might have been affected by the Code Red worm. The telco's broadband subscribers suffered outages created by one side effect of the worm, which (as previously reported) can result in the crash of Cisco's DSL boxes. Cisco's 600 …
Telecoms 23 Aug 2001, 11:51
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Grey market resellers hit back at MS ‘intimidation’
Counter Claims
This week Microsoft churned out one of its regular press releases accusing two companies of selling counterfeit software. The British PC resellers in question were Pacific Computers and Taran Microsystems. The duo deny the charges and are furious that the allegations have been made. They believe that Microsoft issued …
Channel 23 Aug 2001, 12:02
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Keyboards spread disease
We never liked Internet caffs anyway
This is a Register Health Warning: Computer keyboards spread disease. Or so an "alarming Health Zone" experiment conducted by The Mirror claims. Under the headline Taking Your Life in Your Hands, the newspaper writes: "A touch of a computer keyboard or a £10 note brings us into contact with thousands of lethal bacteria." In …
Personal 23 Aug 2001, 12:21
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BT cautions 400 users about excessive Net use
Steady
BT has warned 400 of its AnyTime customers that they might be using the Net access service too much. The email issued yesterday said: "After reviewing our records recently, we have reason to believe that your account has been active for online sessions during extended periods of time when it has not been used." It suggests …
Music and Media 23 Aug 2001, 12:57
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Kyocera posts profit warning
Share price plummets
Kyocera Corp today warned it would miss its profit forecast for the current fiscal year. The Japanese manufacturer said it expected consolidated operating profit of 82 billion yen ($680 million) for the year ending March 2002, Reuters reports. It had previously forecast 170 billion yen. "There is no let-up in the retreat in …
Business 23 Aug 2001, 13:05
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MS poised to win rights to UK govt tech for peanuts
How the joint effort to sell Government Gateway expertise is panning out...
The British government is poised to license world-beating intellectual property to Microsoft "for a song," according to British civil service sources. Discussions concerning the deal for the IP, which is associated with the controversial Government Gateway project Microsoft is currently involved in, are going ahead despite the …
Software 23 Aug 2001, 13:10
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PQ to release WinXP version of Partition Magic next week
Hang on, what about a free patch for 6.0 then?
One of the snagettes about the WinXP beta has been that Microsoft did a point rev on the file system, from NTFS 5.0 to 5.1, thus breaking disk management systems that had anything to do with it, and making life awkward for people wanting, say, to run the beta boot-managed with other operating systems. Other non-Microsoft …
Software 23 Aug 2001, 13:42
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IBM stalls on Regatta stalls
Video Diary
We're tolerant people at The Register. Tolerant to a fault: so when a respected industry veteran starts talking about its fault tolerant servers, we're naturally not going to get too picky if we can't actually receive the material because of ... er, faults on its servers. Are we? IBM probably has more to boast than anyone about …
Hardware 23 Aug 2001, 13:47
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Prostitution, Web cams and political corruption
Arms trade sexposé
An online news service which used prostitutes and hidden cameras to expose political corruption has become the subject of a government inquiry in India. Tehelka.com used hidden cameras to record army officers asking its journalists, posing as arms dealers, to supply sessions with prostitutes in exchange for signing off a …
Music and Media 23 Aug 2001, 13:58
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MP3.com source of Napster copyright theft, suit claims
Online music company sued for 'viral infringement'
You've heard of viral infection and viral marketing, now here's a new, even sillier one: viral copyright infringement. Yes, it does exist, it has to - MP3.com has just been sued over it. The legal action comes from a group of 52 independent songsters and publishers says a report in the San Jose Mercury. They claim MP3.com's …
Music and Media 23 Aug 2001, 14:00
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$15k reward offered for lost laptop
Where were you on August 11?
An unlucky traveller who lost his laptop on a flight is offering a $15,000 reward for its safe return. The Apple PowerBook disappeared whilst on Singapore Airlines flight SQ857 from Hong Kong on August 11, Reuters reports. Its owner is so desperate to get it back that they have placed an advert in Singapore's Business Times …
Personal 23 Aug 2001, 14:03
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Napster to launch subs service by year's end
Home to garage bands and CEO's sprogs
Napster's subscription service won't kick off this summer as originally planned - and when it does, sometime by the end of the year, it really will be a pale shadow of its former self. That's the essence of comments made by the company's new Bertelsmann-appointed CEO, Konrad Hilbers, who last month replaced long-term 'interim' …
Music and Media 23 Aug 2001, 14:04
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Dell Inspiron 8100
Review Power notebook
It's not often that a product leaves us speechless, but this month the Dell Inspiron 8100 enters this exclusive club. It is without a doubt the best notebook we have ever seen. It's not the most portable, or the most stylish, but it's the first mobile PC to leave even the most powerful desktops for dust. It is powered by Intel' …
Personal 23 Aug 2001, 14:12
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Bidders beware the L7NUX number plate
Number plate font laws change on 1 September
If you're interested in buying the L7NUX number plate, currently up for sale on eBay, you should think carefully before making a bid. The number plate is pictured on the eBay site with a very vertical and slimmed down 7, and all the characters close together, which makes the plate read LINUX. If having the plate like that isn't …
Bootnotes 23 Aug 2001, 14:53
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MemoWatch: Schacht plan for Lucent, Mark II
Crisis, what crisis?
Bloomberg carried a story this morning suggesting that Lucent's plans to reorganise its business were put on hold, while its senior execs tried to stitch together a merger deal with Alcatel that might turn around its ailing business. Lucent workers were left wondering who would face the chop as their chief executive, Henry …
Data Networking 23 Aug 2001, 15:35
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Loaded site is titsup.com
IPC shuts 3 online mags, sheds 90 staff
Publisher IPC is canning three Internet sites and shedding 90 staff. The sites to die are BEME.com; unmissabletv.com; and uploaded.com. It claims the move is nothing to do with the company's sale to AOL Time Warner. Unmissabletv was obviously missable, and the unique idea of putting scantily-clad women on the Net via uploaded. …
e-Business 23 Aug 2001, 15:37
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Would you trust AOL?
On the Internet everyone knows you are an overdog
AOL Time Warner is the least trusted company on the planet among e-shoppers, a survey out today claims. Around 37 per cent said they had a high level of distrust for the company, according to the Gartner Group. The 1,250 adult surfers surveyed for the report - which compared AOL to banks, brokerages, credit card companies, e- …
Music and Media 23 Aug 2001, 16:31
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Crypto boffins question SSH security
Protocol isn't all it cracks up to be
Cryptographic researchers have identified flaws in Secure Shell (SSH) which might allow hackers to obtain information about a user's password or traffic being sent using the secure protocol. SSH has two weaknesses which might be exploited by traffic analysis that looked at the timing of keystrokes, according to a paper …
Security 23 Aug 2001, 17:08
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Smile goes ApeSh*t bananas
E-bankers go Brand Bonkers
The Co-op, the supermarket chain where poor people and socialists shop, is to plug Smile, the online bank, by putting stickers featuring the logo and URL on all the bananas it sells. Smile is the Net banking brand of the Co-operative Bank, a sister organisation to the retail chain, which prides itself on an ethical approach to …
Music and Media 23 Aug 2001, 21:47
