6th March 2002 Archive

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BT.com is BT.gone

'Site's been up more than it's been down'

BT has denied that its Web site has been hacked and instead insisted that the downtime is due to "teething troubles". A number of readers have contacted Vulture Central to complain that the site is not accessible. BT has admitted there is a problem and claims that BT.com has recently been upgraded, but that this has not been …

Music and Media 6 Mar 2002, 07:58
Cray stunned by shock resignation

CEO Haydock walks after five months

Word reached us yesterday morning that Cray Inc's CEO Michael Haydock had quit, and although the company took several hours to issue official confirmation, the statement didn't mince words. Haydock walked because of a boardroom row: specifically, "due to differences with the Board of Directors in how to restore the company to …

Hardware 6 Mar 2002, 08:00
KPN plans i-mode launch at CeBIT

Gunning for 1m users

NTT DoCoMo Inc's i-mode mobile data service will formally launch in Europe on March 8 when the Japanese operator's key European partner, KPN Mobile, unveils its new service at the CeBIT fair in Hannover. The mobile subsidiary of Dutch incumbent Royal KPN NV will launch in Germany under the E-Plus brand, and will follow …

Mobile 6 Mar 2002, 08:08
Sun emphatically clarifies Its Solaris-Linux Strategy

What you have to get through your head

No matter how much Sun Microsystems Inc doesn't like it, selling Linux servers based on Intel-compatible processors complicates the pat, streamlined, self-reflecting Sparc-Solaris marketing message which has been the company's hallmark since it got into the server business for real in the early 1990s and stormed the …

Hardware 6 Mar 2002, 08:34
HP gains ground in proxy vote war

ISS blesses merger

HP got a much-needed shot in the arm yesterday with proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) coming out in favour of the Compaq takeover. CEO Carly Fiorina was so delighted that she promptly held a teleconference with analysts to tell them just how delighted she was. ISS is described by HP as America's …

Business 6 Mar 2002, 09:46
FOTW: Drop the limp-wristed headlines

Friendly advice from reader

From: Robert Munro To: drew.cullen@theregister.co.uk Subject: Intel "outs" ... Intel? Jeez, Drew... are all you Register hacks just a sad bunch of poofters or what? You've got headlines that "Intel outs Banias" and "Intel outs Prescott" where the "outing" subtext implies that the chips are rather queer, if you get my drift. …

Letters 6 Mar 2002, 10:24
Ericsson challenges Nokia with snap-happy smartphone

Symbian Linnea breaks cover

Nokia has set great store by integrating the camera with the mobile phone, but it won't have the market to itself for very long. Sony/Ericsson has officially announced its Linnea smartphone, which we told you about in December. It will be available in the third quarter, weeks after the Nokia 7650 debuts. The P800 is a Symbian …

Mobile 6 Mar 2002, 12:17
PGP deep-freezed – NAI shrugs

Too bored to keep it alive, too tired to let it die

Network Associates has put its PGP Desktop software into the deep freeze, leaving both users and its own staff in the dark. "Effective immediately Network Associates will cease new development on these products, and not sell additional licenses, services and support agreements," the company wrote in an email last week. Network …

Security 6 Mar 2002, 12:20
BTopenworld bashed for misleading broadband ad

Tut tut

The advertising watchdog has slapped BTopenworld for publishing misleading adverts abut its broadband service. Punters objected to a magazine ad which said: "England vs Germany (Some games are just too important to risk using a 56k modem)." It continued: "When you're playing a crunch game, you don't want to be using anything …

Telecoms 6 Mar 2002, 12:23
Get yourself a bunch of fives from IT-Minds

This week's discounted IT titles

This week's discounted bunch of fives from Reg associate IT-minds bookstore features White-Hat Security Arsenal by Aviel Rubin. It's a complete arsenal of practical solutions for the "White Hats" in computer security - the good guys doing battle against crackers, virus authors, intruders, and corporate spies. AT&T's Aviel D. …

Site News 6 Mar 2002, 12:25
VIA takes slow boat to Kyro?

Digitimes does some digging

Taiwan is a great place for rumours and some of them are even true. Doing the gossip rounds is the "news" that VIA Technologies is interested in buying STMicroelectronic's graphic chips division. Digitimes, the enterprising local newswire, asked VIA what the score was - and received an answer of sorts. Yes, the chip-to- …

Channel 6 Mar 2002, 13:31
Klez-E worm triggers today

Let's be careful out there

The Klez-E worm is due to activate today on the tenth anniversary of Michelangelo, one of the first widespread computer viruses. Like Michelangelo, Klez-E tries to destroy data on infected computers. It attempts to disable several anti-virus products and delete some anti-virus related files. Klez-E was first spotted last …

Malware 6 Mar 2002, 13:34
$100,000 prize in ‘unbreakable’ crypto challenge

All comers welcome

A company called Bodacion Technologies is offering $100,000 to anyone who can crack their biomorphic number generator and predict the final, one-thousandth, number in a sequence of 999. The company is doing this to promote its Hydra server, which uses biomorphic computation for crypto routines. Additional security enhancements …

Security 6 Mar 2002, 14:49
Half US Net access is via broadband

Good heavens

Broadband accounted for more than half of all Net connections in the US in January, according to the latest figures from Nielsen/NetRatings. Broadband users logged a whopping 1.19 billion hours online in January – an increase of 64 per cent on the year before. In contrast, narrowband time online fell by 3 per cent to 1.14 …

Telecoms 6 Mar 2002, 15:32
Guess leaks credit cards of the fashion-conscious

Unwilling to be warned

The Web retail site for fashion label Guess was leaking customer credit card numbers like so many cotton-poly five-pocket jeans, and 19-year-old Jeremiah Jacks wasn't sure how to get it fixed. Jacks discovered last month that Guess.com was open to an "SQL injection attack," permitting anyone able to construct a properly- …

Security 6 Mar 2002, 16:24
Government projects star in Big Brother awards

Privacy violators named and shamed

Privacy invasers were honoured this week in the fourth annual Big Brother Awards. Watchdog organisation Privacy International bestows the awards to the government and private sector organisations judged to have done the most to invade personal privacy in Britain. Privacy International's Director, Simon Davies, said that …

Music and Media 6 Mar 2002, 17:25