22nd November 2004 Archive

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Bank of Ireland and HP fight over porn bill

In a hole and still digging...

HP and the Bank of Ireland are arguing over who should pick up the bill for the departure of Michael Soden - the porn-surfing chief executive who quit in June. The Bank of Ireland boss was forced to resign after it emerged he'd been surfing for porn at work. The material was not illegal but was in breach of the company's …

IT Director 22 Nov 2004, 09:34
Falk statement on Bofra attack

Site notice Hacked load balancer

On Saturday, The Register suspended service by third party ad serving supplier, Falk, following security issues detailed here. Falk fixed the problem within six hours of notification. Here is its summary of what went wrong: Saturday, 20th November 2004 Falk eSolutions clients using AdSolution Global experienced problems with …

Site News 22 Nov 2004, 10:04
Dixons ditches the video recorder

DVD killed the VCR star

High Street electrical retailer Dixons is ditching the VCR because of falling sales and the increased popularity of newer technology. After 26 years of flogging video cassette recorders (VCRs), Dixons said the machines will be out of its shops before Christmas. Sales of DVD players at Dixons are currently outstripping sales of …

Personal 22 Nov 2004, 10:44
US extends net access tax ban

Three more years

The US Congress has passed a three year ban on internet taxes. State and local governments cannot put tax on internet connections - whether they are dial-up access or DSL access. The only exception is in states which introduced taxes before the original ban was put in place in 1998. One exception is Wisconsin, which has two …

Music and Media 22 Nov 2004, 10:50
Swift blasts off on dying star mission

Spot the gamma ray burst

Swift, a satellite space lab that will hunt and study the most violent explosions ever seen in the universe, has finally launched from Cape Canaveral. It was originally schedule to launch on 8 November, but various set-backs meant that it wasn't until 12:16 (EST) on 20 November, that Swift finally got off the ground. The craft …

Science 22 Nov 2004, 10:57
Skulls Trojan keelhauls Symbian phones

Mobile 'Jolly Roger' malware

Users with Symbian-based mobile phones have been hit by malicious code that disables smartphone features. Skulls, a Trojan horse program that poses as gaming software, is one of the first examples of malicious code to successfully infect mobiles. Skulls began infecting users after copies of the malware were posted on some …

Mobile 22 Nov 2004, 10:58
Annual privacy report details global erosion of freedom

PI and EPIC take the temperature

Last week Privacy International and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) published this year's edition of their Annual Global Privacy Study. The 800 page report, available free here, covers the state of privacy in 60 countries, and concludes that threats to personal privacy have now reached a level dangerous to …

Music and Media 22 Nov 2004, 11:21
RIAA sues filesharing US students

The lawsuit as 'essential educational tool'

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is suing 761 people for alleged illegal filesharing. University students are a particular focus of the legal action with 25 people named for using university networks to distribute music. The individuals are accused of copyright infringement for using peer-to-peer networks …

Music and Media 22 Nov 2004, 11:36
MS exec to head up Finnish state broadcasting

There goes the Nokia mobile TV gig...

Microsoft's local Director Responsible for Information Society Relations, Mikael Jungner, has been appointed director general of YLE, Finland's national public services broadcasting company. According to The Register's local informants, Jungner appeared as a surprise winner after months of consideration of candidates with more …

Music and Media 22 Nov 2004, 11:41
Compuware extends DevPartner Studio

Pre-emptive error-handling tool

Last week Compuware made two new and very significant announcements with respect to its DevPartner Studio product that push the boundaries of what one can expect from an IDE. First, and for those of you that don't know, DevPartner Studio is a developer productivity tool designed to work in conjunction with various versions of …

Developer 22 Nov 2004, 12:05
NetServices slams Gio Internet in bill dispute

3,000 Gio customers caught in crossfire

Some 3,000 broadband customers are facing an uncertain future after being caught in the middle of bitter legal dispute between ISP Gio Internet and Manchester-based wholesale broadband operator NetServices Plc. NetServices Plc is pulling the plug on Gio Internet on December 1 because it claims that the ISP owes it more than £220 …

Telecoms 22 Nov 2004, 12:11
Intel ups Indian investment

Bangalore gets $40m

Chip giant Intel is investing an extra $40m in the next two years to expand its campus in Bangalore. The completed building will provide work space for 1, 200 people. The firm has hired 800 people in each of the last two years and expects that rate to continue, according to Reuters. Intel's Indian centre, its largest outside …

Channel 22 Nov 2004, 12:13
Norwegian rappers play cat and mouse

'Kill Bush' website on the move

A controversial website by Norwegian shock rappers Gatas Parlament (Street Parliament) has returned to the web. Earlier this month Norwegian police closed the site, which urged Norwegians to put a bounty on the head of President Bush. In a press release last week, the group said that they have moved the site out of Norway and …

Music and Media 22 Nov 2004, 12:58
419er seeks flatshare with Reg reader

Suit professional fraudster, n/s, gsoh

Landlords beware - Nigerian 419ers are targeting online UK flatshare sites in an attempt to practice their dark advance fee fraud arts on unsuspecting advertisers. Reg reader James Wilson placed an ad for a spare room on several such sites last Friday. Within hours he had received the following BREATHLESS MISSIVE from NIGERIA. …

Spam 22 Nov 2004, 13:06
eBay, PayPal and the Virgin Mary

Letters Scammed Reg readers write

We had a huge response to the story How scammers run rings around eBay. This is obviously a hot topic. Many, but not all, of the letters were complaints about the PayPal system, particularly about how it works when things go wrong. We've selected the best of the bunch for your perusal: Like many other eBay buyer's I have had …

Letters 22 Nov 2004, 13:11
Panasonic braves Linux-inspired wrath of Ballmer

New 3G phones defy MS sabre-rattling

Was this what Microsoft (Steve Ballmer) was growling and threatening about, when he told Asian countries: "nice little Linux OS you have here. Be a pity if someone sued you..." yesterday? Is it this mass market 3G Linux phone range for Japan, from Panasonic and NEC...? The three new phones are for DoCoMo, on the struggling FOMA …

Mobile 22 Nov 2004, 13:44
World's remotest islet back on the map

Cash'n'Carrion Designer cartography from The Rockall Times

UK satire outfit The Rockall Times recently celebrated its third birthday, and the North Atlantic ne'er-do-wells have released a new version of their popular Map t-shirt to commemorate the event. Here's what they have to say: If you've ever wondered about the exact location of the world's most isolated islet, then satisfy your …

Site News 22 Nov 2004, 13:44
Stunned pundit agrees with Gates over passwords

Biometrics and smartcards are the future

Sometimes people make mistakes, and have to admit that they made a mistake. One of the most interesting mistakes I know of was made by Hartmann Schedel, a physician and cartographer who lived in Nuremberg (in what is now Germany) in the late 15th century. Schedel's most famous work was published in 1493: Liber Chronicarum, or …

ID 22 Nov 2004, 14:26
Air is heavier than we thought, admit scientists

World just gained weight

Scientists have discovered that air is heavier that we previously thought, but not by much. The rough composition of air is well known. It is mostly nitrogen (around 78 per cent) and oxygen (21 per cent). The rest is a mixture of carbon dioxide, water vapour and argon. It is the amount of argon that is key here, because the more …

Science 22 Nov 2004, 15:56
Visa scammers hit UK phones

Playing the numbers game

Credit card fraudsters are trying to fleece UK punters by tricking them into revealing card security information over the phone. The fraudsters, posing as representatives of Visa, are already is possession of card numbers and are after the CVV numbers (commonly printed on the signature panel on the back of the card) often needed …

ID 22 Nov 2004, 16:03
VIA pitches chipset at multi-display applications

AMD 64-bit processors find a home

VIA Technologies today announced wide industry support for its K8T890 chipsets for AMD 64-bit processors. The chipset, for gaming enthusiasts, has an asynchronous bus architecture so hobbyists can tweak processor performance. The Pro version can support two graphics cards and up to four monitors. Ben Boyden, marketing manager …

System Builder 22 Nov 2004, 16:16
BT faces life-changing three months

Will it? Won't it? Can it? Should it?

Life is full of challenging questions such as establishing which came first - the chicken or the egg? Who cares, they both taste great especially when curried. Then there's the one concerning a leopard's ability to change its spots. Or, the 2004 version of this puzzler - can BT really switch from being a former monopoly with …

Telecoms 22 Nov 2004, 17:14
Europe's space council blasts off

First meeting this week

The European space council is set to meet in Brussels for the first time on Thursday this week. Ministers who sit on the EU's competitiveness council will attend the meeting along with ministerial officials from the European Space Agency (ESA). The meeting is being touted as the first step towards a co-ordinated European space …

Science 22 Nov 2004, 17:16
No state regs, taxes for VoIP, FCC says

Washington Roundup Telcos 1: states 0

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has decided that states do not have a right to regulate VoIP. FCC - for now at any rate - believes that the matter is best left to the federal government, because VoIP is, in its view, an interstate service. This is generally an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" stance; but it does …

Telecoms 22 Nov 2004, 21:34
Bofra exploit tied to 'massive botnet'

Incoming!

The attack on ad-serving company Falk that redirected some Reg readers on Saturday towards a site running malicious code may be part of a much bigger attack. Security site vitalsecurity.org reports that a group of hackers - perhaps a criminal gang - is hacking web servers across the net and installing root kits that dynamically …

Anti-Virus 22 Nov 2004, 21:48