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1st August 2002 Archive

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  • When Dreamcasts attack

    Blackhat Inside-out network hacking with toys

    LAS VEGAS -- Cyberpunks will be toting cheap game consoles on their utility belts this fall if they follow the lead of a pair of white hat hackers who demonstrated Wednesday how to turn the defunct Sega Dreamcast into a disposable attack box designed to be dropped like a bug on corporate networks during covert black bag jobs …

    Security 1 Aug 2002, 07:52

  • How green and putrefying is your computer?

    Reader input required for OpenCruft™ standard

    Mysterious English lass Verity Stob - author of 8086 and all that, the funniest history of computing ever-written - has spoken to The Register about her new and highly acclaimed cruftiness metric published at Doctor Dobbs- and her hopes of it becoming official recognized as an IETF RFC. The metric guages of the cruftiness of …

    Bootnotes 1 Aug 2002, 08:30

  • China to overtake Japan in PC sales this year – Intel

    Biomass wins the day

    Intel Corp expects China to become the world's second most important PC market by the end of this year, according to local reports. Reuters news agency reported that Christian Morales, the chip giant's vice president for Asia Pacific, told a news conference in Malaysia that it had originally expected China would overtake …

    Personal 1 Aug 2002, 09:45

  • Microsoft launches Data Centre architecture guides

    FOC

    Microsoft Corp has released details of a new Microsoft Systems Architecture (MSA) program designed to increase the take-up of its Windows 2000 Server operating system in data center environments. The Microsoft Systems Architecture for Internet Data Center is the first in a planned series of architecture guides for …

    Hardware 1 Aug 2002, 09:45

  • AOL plays the family card with 8.0

    Launches Google Search

    America Online Inc yesterday lifted some of the tarpaulin off version 8.0 of its market-leading consumer internet service, which is due for release this fall, announcing a beta test release of the client software which features the usual array of usability and GUI enhancements. The company also said it has gone live with a …

    Music and Media 1 Aug 2002, 09:47

  • Net2Phone, Cisco settle deception case

    Poacher's Pie

    Net2Phone Inc and Cisco Systems Inc have settled a lawsuit in which the market-leading network hardware maker was accused of leading Net2Phone to believe it was a valued partner, only to release competing products and poach customers at a later date. The companies said the settlement resolves all litigation, but did not …

    Data Networking 1 Aug 2002, 09:48

  • DoJ zeroes in on AOL accounting practices

    Criminal investigation commences

    The slick accounting magic by which an ISP called AOL managed to puff itself up into a thing seemingly capable of swallowing up a media behemoth like Time Warner is under investigation by the US Department of Justice (DoJ), the Associated Press reports. The criminal inquiry is compounded with another by the Securities and …

    Business 1 Aug 2002, 09:48

  • McAfee.com rejects NAI bid (again)

    Who will rid us of this turbulent bidder?

    McAfee.com Corp may be considering ways it could force former parent Network Associates Inc to withdraw its unwanted acquisition bid, after 96% of shareholders rejected NAI's buyout offer yesterday, Kevin Murphy and Matthew Aslett write. But there remains some confusion on whether McAfee.com has ruled out a "poison pill" …

    Business 1 Aug 2002, 09:49

  • Adobe cuts Q3 expectations

    Bad July

    Adobe Systems Inc added a depressing post-script to a bleak earnings season yesterday when it downgraded its financial forecasts for the current quarter. The San Jose, California-based vendor said that with over four weeks left of its third quarter ending August 30, it was reducing its revenue expectations for the period …

    Business 1 Aug 2002, 09:49

  • Telewest CEO ousted in boardroom putsch

    Debt swap 'close to inevitable'

    Adam Singer, Telewest's CEO, was deposed yesterday in a boardroom putsch orchestrated by the firm's non-executive directors. His replacement, Charles Burdick, formerly FD, is to concentrate on navigating the company through a 'close to inevitable' debt for equity swap in coming months. In an interview, Burdick said his …

    Business 1 Aug 2002, 10:39

  • Reg Reader Offer Mission critical research at massive discounts

    The Register has teamed up with Bloor Research to offer Reg readers a chance to purchase market-leading research reports at a massive discount. Register readers can buy Bloor Research's Mission Critical Research pack by credit card for only £99/US$149/ €154. The pack consists of five Evaluation and Comparison reports, covering …

    Site News 1 Aug 2002, 12:04

  • Reg readers place VoIP ahead of 3G

    Word's up on the voice application market

    Here are the latest results from MetriNets, the resource formerly known as Reg Reader Research, our joint venture in online opinion polls with our partners Tom's Hardware and Metrinomics, the online market research firm. This month we're taking a look at readers' attitudes towards the voice applications market, based on the …

    Data Networking 1 Aug 2002, 12:47

  • Man auctions advertising space on penis

    Brand extension = hard sell

    Any company with a bit of spare cash and looking to raise its corporate profile with a bit of thrusting and explosive marketing may care to check out this advertising opportunity on eBay. For a modest sum, you can have your logo tattooed onto a man's penis, or his buttock, or indeed both buttocks. We can only assume that this …

    Bootnotes 1 Aug 2002, 14:52

  • OpenSSH trojaned!

    The SSH hits the fan...

    Copies of OpenSSH packages on popular download sites have been trojaned, developers have warned. Overnight it was realised that the tarball for OpenSSH 3.4p1 on the main openBSD (ftp.openbsd.org) mirror was compromised, after developers noticed that the checksum of the package had changed. Other mirror sites might also be …

    Security 1 Aug 2002, 15:38

  • Multiple virus scanning needed, says multiple scanning firm

    One is never enough, or is it?

    No single anti-virus product catches a comprehensive range of email viruses and malware within a variety of compressed and uncompressed file formats. That's the conclusion of a study analysing the results of research by five leading anti-virus testing laboratories from security firm GFI which reveals various (we'd say minor) …

    Security 1 Aug 2002, 15:43

  • Captain Cyborg gets oil-check at BBC

    Guest appearance on Radio 2

    Our favourite robotics expert, Kevin Warwick aka, Captain Cyborg, is promoting his new book I Cyborg the epic tale of one man's transformation in to half human/half tractor following the implantation of an electronic chip in his arm in April. You can catch him tonight between 5pm and 7pm on the Johnnie Walker show BBC Radio 2. …

    Bootnotes 1 Aug 2002, 15:47

  • SonyEricsson hires actors to promote T68i

    "How was I?"

    SonyEricsson is hiring "actors" to promote the new T68i phone in New York, the Wall Street Journal reports. Posing as members of the public, the contract players will break into spontaneous celebration of their phones in front of tourist landmarks and in restaurants. It's not fair, says a spokesman for Ralph Nader's consumer …

    Bootnotes 1 Aug 2002, 17:26

  • Apple unveils shader language, QE APIs

    Jagwyre only

    Apple has published details of its Quartz Extreme extensions, which features a programmable shaders and a new instruction set for creating OpenGL shaders. If there were any doubts that Apple was less than hardcore about OpenGL, this document should expel them. The PDF [3.5MB] accompanied a BOF (Birds of a Feather) at SIGGRAPH …

    Mac Channel 1 Aug 2002, 18:44

  • Play the Alexa game

    Site of the Day Spyware is bad, right?

    One thing webmasters are almost guaranteed to do is fib about the viewing figures for their site. Sometimes it's ignorance, sometime it's ego and sometimes it's pulling the wool over the eyes of advertisers. Few sites, in the UK at any rate, do regular ABCe audits. The Register for example did its last public audit in March …

    Bootnotes 1 Aug 2002, 22:56

  • Man forced to withdraw penis from eBay

    Dry hump as hard sell faces chop

    Hardly one hour elapsed after our shocking revelation that a man was offering advertising space on his penis, than eBay cruelly prematurely terminated the coupling. It's a poor show, it must be said. After all, it's hardly Nazi memorabilia they're punting here. On the contrary, this must be seen as a lost opportunity to send …

    Bootnotes 1 Aug 2002, 22:59