27th May 2002 Archive
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Qwest exposes customer data
Pick a password, any password
Telecom giant Qwest Communications acknowledged Thursday that a glitch in its Web-based paperless billing system left some long-distance customer records exposed for over a week. Qwest offers long-distance customers a price break if they forgo printed statements and pay their bills with a credit card though the company's Web …
Security 27 May 2002, 02:24
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NAI to pull plug on CyberCop
Embed with Sniffer
Network Associates Inc will in July pull the plug on further development of its popular CyberCop vulnerability scanner and intrusion-detection product and instead will redirect efforts to integrate new security functionality into lines produced out of its Sniffer Technologies network analyser arm. Products reaching end of …
Security 27 May 2002, 05:21
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LG Philips raises LCD stakes
New 5G Plant
LG Philips, the liquid crystal display manufacturing joint venture of Royal Philips Electronics NV and LG Electronics, moved to consolidate its market-leading position on Friday with the opening a major new fab in Kumi, South Korea. The thin-film-transistor LCD plant is claimed to be the first "fifth-generation" TFT-LCD …
Channel 27 May 2002, 05:22
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Sony buys in InterTrust DRM technology
Cut-price deal
Digital rights management (DRM) company InterTrust Technologies Inc has signed a licensing agreement with Sony Corp to pay InterTrust a $28.5m fee plus undisclosed future royalties to license copyright patents to use in its consumer electronics products. The deal gives Sony rights to InterTrust's 24 existing US patents, plus …
e-Business 27 May 2002, 05:22
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Face recognition kit fails in Fla airport
How about fifty false positives a day?
Palm Beach International Airport security workers would be racking up heaps of overtime pay dealing with more than fifty false positives daily if their bosses were to install Visionics' terror-busting face recognition gear, the airport administrators have concluded. The kit had been installed free of charge for a trial run …
Security 27 May 2002, 08:02
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UK Government aims to track laptop theft via ID chips
Dell, EMI and Woolworths sign up to £5.5m tagging trial
The UK Government is backing a scheme to fit tracking technology to laptops and other items in an attempt to curb theft. Anti-theft tags will be fitted to laptops, compact discs and clothing consignments as part of a partnership initiative with major UK businesses to stamp out the illicit trade in stolen and counterfeit goods …
Personal 27 May 2002, 10:22
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Nigerian fraudsters – let the games begin
Scambaiting becomes new Net blood sport
Our piece last week on Nigerian 419 email fraudsters provoked a flurry of correspondence. Doubtless most Reg readers will have received one of these emails from the son of some West African colonel, USUALLY WRITTEN INEXPLICABLY IN CAPS, displaying a tenuous hold on the English language and promising riches beyond the wildest …
Bootnotes 27 May 2002, 10:27
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Ratner to launch online jewellry empire
Gem of an idea
Gerald Ratner is looking to raise £4 million as part of his plan create an online jewellery empire. Ratner - whose high street jewellery business suffered big time after he famously described his products as "crap" - is looking to flog branded gear that is set to undercut traditional high street retailers. According to AFX …
Music and Media 27 May 2002, 11:02
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SMS, word entry killer app goes hunting for Nokia
Listen to Howard, people, you know he makes sense...
Howard Gutowitz, CEO of Eatoni Ergonomics, is that dangerous character, a Man with a Mission. For starters he's built a better way to do SMS, and is battering at the doors of the major mobile phone companies trying to attract their attention. But the Mission is broader (and simpler) than that, because if you think of search as …
Mobile 27 May 2002, 13:37
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Axe hangs over NEC PC ops in Scotland
200 jobs could go
Japanese electronics outfit NEC is due to issue a statement later this afternoon concerning the future of its computer plant in West Lothian, Scotland. Some 200 jobs are reportedly under threat as NEC decides whether to shut the plant or find a buyer. NEC claims it is looking at the future of West Lothian - and an operation in …
Business 27 May 2002, 13:38
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Sheppey, Chatham, Sidcup – the UK's triangle of fear
More Net nonsense from the Garden of England
If you've ever wondered how to tell whether or not you're a pikey (gypsy), look no further than this illuminating guide to another weed-tangled acre of the Garden of England. Yes, it appears that hot on the heels of www.sheppeyscum.com and the dear-departed and much-lamented Chatham Girls, an equally unloved corner of Kent has …
Bootnotes 27 May 2002, 13:41
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Laptop cops nasty holiday dose
Bohemian lifestyle results in crabs
Doctors at The Computer World, a new retail division of www.timecomputers.com have been battling to save a laptop which contracted a nasty case of crabs while on holiday. It's owner, one Angus Grant from Leeds, briefly left the machine on the beach after emailing his girlfriend. When he returned he found it- perhaps …
Bootnotes 27 May 2002, 13:45
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Apple ‘iBrowser’ insurgency denied by AOL techs
Skunkworks gambit
The most tantalising net rumour burning up the wires this week is the one about the Apple iBrowser. Heard it? It goes like this. Apple co-opts the Mozilla code base for a skunkworks native OS X browser that's both super fast and grannie-friendly. A Galeon for OS X. "iBrowser" thus completes the set of consumer software apps …
Software 27 May 2002, 13:52
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Security researchers warn of worm blitzkriegs
cDc for Internet security plan
Security researchers are warning of the availability of more powerful virus writing techniques, which call for a more co-ordinated approach to combat next generation worms. In a paper, How to 0wn the Internet in Your Spare Time, Stuart Staniford of Silicon Defense, Vern Paxson of the ICSI centre for internet research and …
Security 27 May 2002, 15:04
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Anti-virus evals waste precious resources
Opinion Like the paper they're printed on, for example
In 1991, essayist Paul Fussell wrote, "The current United States can be defined as an immense accumulation of not terribly acute or attentive people obliged to operate a uniquely complex technology, which, all other things being equal, always wins." This was BAD, Fussell said. And it was not just an ordinary "bad," like a …
Security 27 May 2002, 15:10
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Intel plays gentle giant in euro-broadband push
BB gun
Intel loves broadband. No it really, really loves broadband. In the US, Craig Barrett, Intel CEO is lobbying the Bush administration to promote a national policy to accelerate broadband rollouts across the country. In Europe, the chip giant is taking it more gently. It wants a quick broadband rollout on this continent too: it …
Telecoms 27 May 2002, 15:21
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NEC jobs in Scotland safe
...but only just makes it in Livingston
Some 155 jobs at NEC's PC manufacturing plant in Livingston, Scotland, are safe - for the time being at least. There was intense speculation that NEC intended to pull the plug on the plant following a slump in demand for PCs. However, in a statement issued this afternoon the company said it was "keeping desktops and servers …
Business 27 May 2002, 15:52
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Opera vuln gives up local files
Time to upgrade
A vulnerability in Opera 6.01 and 6.02 for Windows allows a malicious Web site to grab any file off a client's local drive with ease, GreyMagic Software has discovered. That's the bad news. The good news is that affects only Windows, and it's fixed in version 6.03 which is now available for download. Version 6.0 is not affected …
Security 27 May 2002, 16:10
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MESH shuts Scottish PC manufacturing ops
London is better value
MESH is to close its Scottish manufacturing operations, near Edinburgh. All production will now be handled from the company's Oxley, north London headquarters. It has not released the number of people affected by the move. In a press statement today, the UK system builder, said it has refitted two production units with new …
Channel 27 May 2002, 16:11
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Klez-H is the worst virus ever – official
Get out the AV Kleenex
Klez-H is the worst virus ever, according to figures from managed services firm MessageLabs, which has blocked 775,000 copies of the pathogen since it first appeared on April 15. Klez-H overtakes the infamous SirCam worm. MessageLabs is blocking 20,000 Klez-H infected emails per day. The virus accounts for one in 300 of the …
Security 27 May 2002, 18:04
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Orange to launch flat rate GPRS mobile Internet access
France first
Orange is to launch a flat-rate mobile Internet service in France this Friday. It's hoped the service, which will cost €6 a month on launch, will be extended across Europe by the end of the summer. The service, the launch of which has been timed to coincide with the start of France's defence of the World Cup, will be available …
Mobile 27 May 2002, 18:06
