7th February 2002 Archive

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MS bitten by old .NET vulnerability

Cross-site scripting again

Numerous installations of Microsoft ASP.NET are vulnerable to cross-site scripting (CSS), according to a recent post by Johannes Westerink to the BugTraq mailing list. CSS leverages JavaScript and makes it possible to place a malicious URL in an e-mail or on a Web site, which if followed will compromise the user's machine by …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 00:26
BT to slash wholesale broadband costs

Wait for it, wait for it

BT is to slash the cost of wholesale broadband access in a move which could lead to affordable high-speed Net access, its new Arsenal-supporting CEO confirmed today. Although BT’s change of heart had been widely trailed this week a spokesman for the company described newspaper reports of price cuts as "wildly speculative". No …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 09:42
Toshiba to flog mobile phones in Europe

GPRS push

Toshiba Corp has become the latest Japanese electronics giants to lustfully eye the European mobile phone market. Tokyo, Japan-based Toshiba is planning to launch a range of European GPRS (general packet radio services) handsets in the summer of 2002. The company is hoping that it will be able to transfer expertise gained …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 11:55
AMD plans PDA push with Alchemy buy

Getting personal

Advanced Micro Devices Inc is taking its desktop fight with Intel Corp into the burgeoning market for embedded Internet-enabled terminals and devices, Tony Cripps write. The move comes courtesy of Sunnyvale, California-based AMD's purchase of highly-rated Alchemy Semiconductor Inc, a privately-owned developer of high …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 11:55
Sun peeks through clouds with new storage

Software offensive

Sun Microsystems Inc' storage business had a good day yesterday - the first in three to four years of what have been abysmal times for the division, Tim Stammers writes. The company announced new models for its flagship T3 storage arrays that at last match the competition in terms of basic functionality. It also stepped up …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 11:58
Software biz attacks BBC education ‘stranglehold’

Choice for Schools

British educational software publishers are banding together to fight BBC's plans to "monopolise" digital broadcasting in schools. They accuse the BBC of aiming to "dominate classrooms across the country by owning the process for creating and delivering the digital learning environment for children from 5 to 16 years old". If …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 12:46
BT price cuts could ‘wipe out’ local loop unbundling

Mixed response to BT's plans

BT’s plans to cut the wholesale cost of DSL could signal the demise of local loop unbundling in the UK. Richard Greco, CEO of Bulldog Communications – one of the few operators involved in LLU – said if BT goes ahead it could "wipe out" competition unless LLU costs also fall on a par with wholesale costs. Ripping into BT's …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 12:48
BTopenwound still bleeds

More pressure needed on the tourniquet

BTopenworld continues to haemorrhage money – although at a reduced rate – in spite of increasing turnover. BT’s mass-market ISP business – cruelly referred to as BTopenwound by some for its ability to lose so much cash – reported that turnover for the three months to December 31 increased to £59 million from £38 million during …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 15:20
Chef has sex with goat

Mobile phones to the rescue

A man is awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of having sex with a goat. He was spotted by passengers on a packed train which stopped at signals opposite an allotment. Stephen Hall, a 23-year-old chef, "lassoed" the goat with his belt and – then rammed it. Horrified commuters used their mobile phones to contact the …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 16:25
The US votes on MS-DoJ deal: 15,000 against, 7,500 for

Gruesome twosome says they might take another look at it...

Microsoft and the DoJ have taken the judge's hint and confirmed that they'll consider changes to the proposed antitrust settlement, following public comment received on it. This seems to have resulted in a straight two to one win for the opposers - 15,000 comments agin, 7,500 for. Apparently another 7,000 or thereabouts were …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 16:46
HPaQ deal will 'create chaos – Jack Welch

No wonder EU waves it through

Neutron Jack Welch, the titanic former boss of GE, forecasts chaos, if the HP/Compaq merger goes through. He reckons that competitors want the deal to go ahead - that's why no tried to stop the EU from waving the merger through competition scrutiny. Welch passed judgement on the controversial merger in front of HP CEO Carly …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 17:42
Stallman issues Porto Alegre clarification

Relax, and support GNOME again please

Richard Stallman has written to us about comments made on the .NET/GNOME controversy, reported by Brazilian tech site HotBits and cited here thanks to a translation provided to us by HotBits, Stallman asks de Icaza to explain himself to the community. Not so, says RMS, who says the remarks were misreported. We reproduce his …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 18:36
How to hack unbreakable Oracle servers

It's not brain surgery

Security researcher David Litchfield has identified a vast number of attacks against Oracle application servers and has written them up in a paper which includes defensive strategies as well. From this we learn, contrary to Oracle President Larry Ellison's claims, that Oracle is vulnerable to buffer overflow attacks, DoS …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 20:53
Sun embraces x86 in Linux overture

True love at last

Pragmatism has trumped pride at Sun Microsystems: the company will expand its Intel-based Cobalt line at the low-end to win back some of the business currently being lost to white box and Dell x86 servers. That was the most dramatic of nine announcements from Sun this morning, declaring that it is embracing Linux. Not all of …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 21:46
NY sues NAI so you can say McAfee sucks

Outrageous EULA challenged

The State of New York has filed suit against Network Associates over outrageous EULA terms forbidding users and journalists to speak ill of the company's security and anti-virus product, Reuters reports. NAI has the nerve to require the company's consent before anyone can publish reviews of its products or disclose to any third …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 22:34
Enron – the DRAM angle

Short covering, loose lips and cavalier practices

Enron, the corrupt energy trader, was feted for its ability to turn dull things - gas, broadband, data storage and sundry utilities - into trading pits. Transferring techniques from the financial markets, the Texas company made those dull things exciting, pumping liquidity through pipes and down wires. We now know that this was …

Business 7 Feb 2002, 23:43