The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

5th September 2008 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • Report: IRS networks riddled with vulns, rogue servers

    Taxpayer beware

    The US Internal Revenue Service is putting tax payers at risk by operating thousands of web servers that contain security vulnerabilities or have not received proper authorization, a new report has concluded. According to the Treasury Inspector for the Tax Administration - a Treasury Department watchdog - the IRS operates 2, …

    Security 5 Sep 2008, 00:02

  • Wireless pen options?

    Q&A

    Is there such a thing as Bluetooth - or other wireless technology - pen that will allow me to write on paper yet capture what I write, digitally? This would be a great way to take notes if, say, you only have a phone with you, not a laptop, and you can write more quickly than you can type.

    Reg Hardware 5 Sep 2008, 00:02

  • 88% of IT admins would steal data if fired

    So the survey says

    An IT administrator scorned is not to be trusted, according to a study recently conducted by Cyber-Ark. The security firm claims a survey conducted on 300 security professionals found a whopping 88 per cent of IT admins would steal valuable and sensitive company information if they were fired tomorrow. Only 12 per cent said …

    IT Director 5 Sep 2008, 00:23

  • Next-gen netbook Intel Atom due Q3 2009

    Roadmap reveals dual-core CPU-GPU debut

    Intel's next-gen Atom processor for Small, Cheap Computers - the successor to today's 'Diamondville' - will debut a year from now, according to the chip giant's latest roadmap. The chip, codenamed 'Pineview', will arrive in Q3 2009, according to long-term progress charts seen by Japanese-language site PCWatch. Pineview is one …

    Reg Hardware 5 Sep 2008, 07:02

  • How to stop worrying and enjoy paying for incoming calls

    Learning to love termination fees

    Termination fees - the money paid to a receiving network for connecting a call - are for the chop. The question is what, if anything, will replace them; moreover, will ordinary punters ever even notice they're paying to receive calls? Ofcom recently announced it was going to take a good look at the question of termination fees …

    Networks 5 Sep 2008, 07:02

  • 4G iPod Nano spied on web

    Apple's fourth-gen iPod Nano has surfaced on the web, well ahead of next week's anticipated announcement of the product. Online business-oriented market, Alibaba, lists a screen-protector product for the new music player: Apple's 4G iPod Nano It's worth noting the device alleged to the 4G Nano matches pics that appeared …

    Reg Hardware 5 Sep 2008, 07:13

  • Samsung set to buy SanDisk?

    Checking out 'various opportunities'

    The flash memory market is abuzz as Korean news sources, along with Reuters and Bloomberg, are reporting that Samsung Electronics is thinking about buying SanDisk. A Samsung spokesperson, James Chung, said: "We are considering various opportunities regarding SanDisk but nothing has been decided.'' SanDisk is uninformative, a …

    Financial News 5 Sep 2008, 07:22

  • 7-year-old faces M&S Inquisition

    Not just data protection, this is M&S data protection

    Calls by the Information Commissioner for organisations to stop hiding behind the Data Protection Act (DPA) fell on deaf ears this week as Marks and Spencers insisted on a seven-year-old giving official permission before an operator could talk to his mum. The Information Commissioner’s initiative was timed to coincide with the …

    Law 5 Sep 2008, 07:47

  • Bosch strategy boutique fails greenwash test

    Saving the planet, one space shuttle launch at a time

    The marketing robots at the UK tentacle of remorseless Teutonic engineering firm Bosch haven't quite mastered the art of eco-friendly promotion guff. Their "Planet Savers" competition offers entrants the exciting opportunity of flying all expenses paid to Florida to witness the launch of the space shuttle, that wonder of our …

    Environment 5 Sep 2008, 08:02

  • Acer to sell 2m mini laptops in Q3

    So much for Dell?

    Acer reckons it will sell 2m Small, Cheap Computers during the current quarter, which comes to a conclusion at the end of the month. Half of that total will be sold during September alone, the company said. The figures are for sales around the world. Acer's Aspire One is currently one of the best-value SCCs you can buy, with …

    Reg Hardware 5 Sep 2008, 08:22

  • HDS revving AMS

    Monterey mid-range storage refresh coming

    The wires are humming that Hitachi Data Systems is going to update its AMS mid-range storage array line with three new Monterey models. We should expect an announcement quite soon. The AMS - Adaptable Modular Storage - line was introduced in mid-2005 as the successor to the previous Thunder range, with two models: entry-level …

    Storage 5 Sep 2008, 08:42

  • Carbonite muscles alongside Mozy in Lenovo

    Cloud backup for IdeaPad notebooks

    According to a report, Lenovo, which picked EMC's Mozy cloud backup for its SL business notebook line, has rejected EMC and picked competing Carbonite cloud backup for its consumer IdeaPad notebooks (Should we believe a single report? The reporting Mass High Tech journal looks solid and it directly quotes Carbonite CEO David …

    Storage 5 Sep 2008, 08:44

  • NetApp brings StoreVault home to mom

    StoreVault becomes standard NetApp product available world-wide

    NetApp has brought its separate low-end StoreVault product range in-house, as a standard NetApp S family product available to its worldwide resellers. StoreVault is a low-end NetApp storage array packaged for small and medium enterprises and remote and branch offices (ROBO). It is positioned under the FAS 2000 low-end array …

    Channel Register 5 Sep 2008, 08:47

  • Dell plots worldwide factory sell-off

    Outsource to compete

    Dell is trying to offload ownership of its factories worldwide as part of an overhaul of its production strategy, reports say. The one-time PC champ has been in negotiations with major contract manufacturers and expects to flog most or all of its facilities "within the next 18 months", according to the Wall Street Journal. …

    Channel Register 5 Sep 2008, 08:56

  • Those old timer sign results in full

    And the winners are...

    It's hats off to you, our beloved readers, for your massive response to our challenge to create an "Elderly people" sign to replace the current couple of cripples hobbling down to the bingo - an image which doesn't much impress campaigning old timers organisation Age Concern. Well, it's taken us a while to sift through your …

    Bootnotes 5 Sep 2008, 09:03

  • Government told: Release secret Iraq documents

    Additions to sexed-up weapons docs

    The Information Commissioner Richard Thomas has told the government that it should release draft versions of a dossier about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction and comments made on it by spy chiefs. The Hutton Inquiry resulted in much of the dossier, prepared for the Joint Intelligence Committee, being made public. …

    Law 5 Sep 2008, 09:54

  • How Chrome puts the skids under Nokia

    Analysis What does Gears mean for the mobile web?

    Google's first web browser is here, and I've been trying it out. The diminutive feature set, in line with our expectations of Google, is welcome. However, as with IE7, I find it hard to orient myself in a browser without a menu bar. At the end of the day, as Google put it itself, it's just another WebKit-based browser. The …

    Mobile 5 Sep 2008, 09:58

  • Group Test: Wireless music streamers

    Round up Sends songs to your hi-fi with these four systems

    The Roku Soundbridge M1001, Logitech's Squeezebox Duet, Philips' Streamium NP1100 and the Sonos Digital Music System all offer ways to get the music on your hard drive to pump out of your stereo. They do so in various forms with various extra functionalities and at various prices, but at the end of the day they all do …

    Reg Hardware 5 Sep 2008, 10:02

  • Enough is enough! Plasmon board recommends sale

    $25 million private equity bid approach supported

    Enough's enough! Get me outta here. The Hanover Investors-backed Plasmon board has had it up to here and is pulling the plug. With Q1 fiscal '09 sales 20 per cent below expectations it's showing positive feelings towards a $25 million bid from a US-based technology private equity firm, identity unknown. Plasmon is a developer …

    Storage 5 Sep 2008, 10:02

  • Facebook - The Movie! Exclusive storyboard peek

    White-knuckle rollercoaster of a movie in prospect

    The recent shock news that Sony had commissioned West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin to knock together a screenplay about how Facebook redefined just about every paradigm open to redefinition was greeted with a mixture of horror, disbelief and out-and-out jaw-dropping incredulity among Reg readers. Well, we've pulled off a bit of a …

    Bootnotes 5 Sep 2008, 10:05

  • North Korean Mata Hari in alleged cyber-spy plot

    Updated Tales of sex, spying and spyware

    South Korea has accused its neighbour North Korea of cyber-espionage during the trial of a suspected Mata Hari-style spy. However some political commentators are suggesting that the case against alleged spy Won Jeong Hwa is unsupported by evidence and riddled with inconsistencies. North Korea's electronic warfare division …

    Malware 5 Sep 2008, 10:40

  • My name really is Ivan O'Toole, admits Ivan O'Toole

    Parents, eh?

    The regular readers among you will know we're a bit fond of stories relating to parents who slap their sprogs with ill-advised or downright perverse names, as evidenced by the cases of 4Real, Metallica, @, John Blake Cusack Version 2.0, Renault Megane and, spectacularly, Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. Well, this in-depth …

    Bootnotes 5 Sep 2008, 10:43

  • BOFH: Lock and reload

    Episode 29 Cheap at four times the price

    "We should sue!" the PFY snaps angrily, thumping the Boss's desk with vigour. "We can't let them get away with this!" "Really?" the Boss asks. "I'd hardly have thought you'd want to sue a fellow professional?" "PROFESSIONAL!" the PFY gasps. "They're cowboys! What sort of outsourcing company wouldn't put in a redundant …

    BOFH 5 Sep 2008, 11:02

  • Columbia set to resurrect Ghostbusters

    Egon, your mucus - again

    Columbia Pictures has asked The Office co-executive producers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky to work up a script for a third outing of Ghostbusters, Variety reports. The plan is apparently to reunite original cast Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis for the project. The latter has just directed comedy …

    Entertainment 5 Sep 2008, 11:16

  • Employee has no privacy on company computers, US court rules

    What's yours is ours

    Employees do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy for material stored on computers owned by their employers, a US court has ruled. The New Jersey court said that files on a work-owned computer can be accessed and searched if the company gives permission, even if the user does not. The ruling came in the case of a man …

    Law 5 Sep 2008, 11:22

  • Hadron boffins: Our meddling will not destroy universe

    No 'strangelet soup' for you

    Boffins preparing to fire up the most powerful particle-smasher ever built have released another reassuring report which says that their machine will definitely not destroy the universe - nor even the planet Earth. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a titanic 27-kilometre doughnut made of ultra-chilly superconductor magnet pipe …

    Physics 5 Sep 2008, 11:47

  • Samsung parades Omnia 3G smartphone

    Last night, at a lavish event in London, Samsung proudly paraded its brand new 3G Windows Mobile 6.1-based touchscreen handset, the SGH-i900 -aka Omnia. The Omnia was first seen back in April at a European trade fair, but it hasn't been known exactly when Samsung would make its frontal assault on the iPhone available in the UK …

    Reg Hardware 5 Sep 2008, 11:52

  • Pure Digital Evoke Flow internet radio

    Review Pure entertainment pleasure

    After two years in development, Pure Digital has created what it hopes will become internet radio’s first genuinely iconic product. Our first reaction was that this is a really attractive little radio. The company has kept the familiar Evoke casing, but coated the device in a gloss piano-black finish with stylish and solid- …

    Reg Hardware 5 Sep 2008, 12:02

  • Chubby crims more likely to leave dabs

    'You're nicked, fatty'

    Obese criminals are more likely to leave their fingerprints at crime scenes because of the amount of salty food they eat. A police boffin has developed a new way of examining the corrosion on bullet casings and knife blades that is caused by minuscule amounts of salt in hand sweat, according to the Daily Telegraph. Dr John …

    Policing 5 Sep 2008, 12:06

  • I was a government guinea pig, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

    Gargantuan US child health study - all take?

    What will the US government owe the hundreds of thousands of Americans it will swab, prick, track and trace over the next 21 years, in the largest children's health study ever? So far, the answer from the National Children's Study is "not much". The study, a joint effort led by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the …

    Government 5 Sep 2008, 12:08

  • Boffins use heartbeat to thwart wireless implant hack

    Chinese cardiac crypto

    Interfering with wireless medical implants sounds like a movie threat plot rather than a real risk - but if there is a threat, Chinese boffins have come up with an ingenious solution for combating it. Researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong have developed a technique for using a patient's heartbeat as the source …

    Security 5 Sep 2008, 12:33

  • DNA database costs soar

    Prying is pricey

    Home Office figures show that the cost of running the national DNA database has more than doubled since 2002-03. Meg Hillier MP said that in 2002-03 the cost of DNA database services was £774,300, but that service and IT development delivery costs for 2008-09 are projected as £1.77m. In 2006-07, that figure reached £2.04m, …

    Policing 5 Sep 2008, 12:35

  • EA free petrol stunt triggers north London gridlock

    Shoot-em-up promo creates real life car chaos

    Another great moment in the annals of computer game PR stunts today - Electronic Arts caused gridlock this morning by offering £40 of free petrol to punters in Finsbury Park, north London. Given current petrol costs, this led to over 500 drivers fighting to get on the forecourt from early this morning. The publisher offered £ …

    Bootnotes 5 Sep 2008, 12:52

  • Police quiz BT on secret Phorm trials

    RIPA? Never heard of it officer...

    City of London police questioned BT earlier this week as part of a probe into the covert wiretapping and profiling of the internet use of tens of thousands of BT customers during tests of Phorm's adware system. City of London CID met BT representatives on Tuesday. Officers have been examining the dossier of evidence handed to …

    Law 5 Sep 2008, 13:05

  • Sophos DNS snafu creates update problems

    Bad hair day nothing to do with hackers

    Domain name system problems left some users of Sophos unable to get security updates on Friday. The same issue, blamed on a mistake by one of the security firm's service providers rather than hostile action, left many surfers unable to access its main sophos.com website. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, …

    Security 5 Sep 2008, 13:50

  • Debian components breach terms of GPLv2

    You want source code with that?

    A top Debian contributor has been left "pretty disappointed" by elements of the Debian community for failing to comply with the conditions of the GNU GPLv2 license. Daniel Baumann, who maintains the Debian Syslinux bootloader package, has said Debian components were being released only in binary form without source code - …

    Operating Systems 5 Sep 2008, 14:02

  • Ten tweaks for a new Acer Aspire One

    Take charge of Linpus

    Acer's Aspire One is ready to go out of the box, but if you've opted for the Linux version and you're new to the OS, you may be wondering how to get started. Here are ten things to try. Before we start, a warning. Later tips involve working with Linux configuration files, which do not take kindly to errors. Check your typing …

    Reg Hardware 5 Sep 2008, 14:02

  • Sun and NetApp gain market share

    Gartner data bad news for top 5 external storage vendors

    Sun showed everyone a clean pair of heels as it grew its external disk storage market share faster than any other vendor in the second quarter of the year according to Gartner. IDC's quarterly disk disk market tracker also shows Sun way out in front. The Gartner report tracks world-wide external controller-based disk storage …

    Storage 5 Sep 2008, 14:09

  • MS preps four critical updates for September

    Patch Tuesday train chugs into view

    Microsoft plans to release four security bulletins next Tuesday as part of the September edition of its monthly Patch Tuesday update cycle. The four slated updates - all described by Redmond as critical - covering remote code injection risks affecting Media Player, Windows Media Encoder, Office, and Windows. All supported …

    Software 5 Sep 2008, 15:01

  • DARPA funds radical disco-copter concept

    Spinning-platter switchblade chopper takes wing

    Pentagon boffinry chiefs, not content with the existing panoply of wacky new whirly-copter concepts, are to fund still another radical rotary wing project - the "DiscRotor". The idea of the DiscRotor is that of a helicopter with a large circular saucer-like hub and ordinary rotor blades extending out from it. The disco-copter …

    Government 5 Sep 2008, 15:06

  • America's CTO: We have a winner

    Poll Results The people's choice vs Larry

    In one of the tightest contests ever seen in a Reg poll, columnist and software developer Ted Dziuba has emerged as the people's choice to be Barack Obama's "Chief Technology Officer". Dziuba beat off a stiff challenge from Hans Reiser, the fallen Linux guru who was sentenced to 15 years for murder in an Oakland, Ca. court last …

    Bootnotes 5 Sep 2008, 15:08

  • Blazing Vaios: Sony's hot-tops hit the UK, too

    Burning laptops not just in US

    Sony secretly wrote to its UK channel partners earlier this week warning them that the company planned to recall some Vaio TZ-series laptops, The Register has learned. The firm, which was forced to recall 440,000 Vaio notebooks worldwide because of wiring faults that could cause overheating, asked its Blighty resellers to “ …

    Channel Register 5 Sep 2008, 15:27

  • Price cutting rivals eat into Nokia's market share

    Shares fall sharply on falling market share

    Nokia has signalled an end to its uninterrupted growth, predicting that its market share would shrink, slightly, during the current quarter - though it will of course still increase over the whole year. Nokia reckons its misfortune is down to competitors cutting prices beyond what's sustainable, in an attempt to grab market …

    Mobile 5 Sep 2008, 15:30

  • Orange can't find BlackBerry maps

    Updated But will sell you their alternative

    Punters getting themselves a BlackBerry Bold from Orange are finding the in-built mapping application absent, and are being asked to pay for the Orange alternative despite the original adverts clearly stating the in-built app would be included. The adverts in question appeared on the Orange website, and used to clearly state …

    Mobile 5 Sep 2008, 16:07

  • US startup launches online airwaves market

    Secondhand spectrum swap

    Spectrum trading - the ability for licence holders to sell on, or sub let, their frequencies - has been broadly endorsed by both the FCC and Ofcom, so now a US company has done the obvious thing and set up a market for the buying and selling of radio frequencies. SpecEx is launched today, with spectrum worth $250 million up …

    Wireless 5 Sep 2008, 16:22

  • EA Europe struggles squeezing out Spore

    Login problems at launch

    Electronic Arts can't seem to fix login problems preventing many customers from taking Spore online during its European launch day. Since yesterday, many early customers have reported an inability to log into EA's UK servers. The errors messages appear to range from "invalid login" to "you do not have the proper spore.com …

    Applications 5 Sep 2008, 18:03

  • Yahoo! shares! hit! five! year! low!

    Microhoo! chances 'negligible'

    Yahoo!'s share price dipped to $17.75 on Thursday, hitting its lowest point since October 2003. As the Associated Press points out, the company's market value now sits at about $13bn below what Microsoft would have lavished on investors had Jerry Yang and crew accepted Redmond's May takeover bid. Steve Ballmer's final Microhoo …

    Financial News 5 Sep 2008, 20:59

  • Crimeware giants form botnet tag team

    Rock Phish's big, fat, fast-flux network

    The Rock Phish gang - one of the net's most notorious phishing outfits - has teamed up with another criminal heavyweight called Asprox in overhauling its network with state-of-the-art technology, according to researchers from RSA. Over the past five months, Rock Phishers have painstakingly refurbished their infrastructure, …

    Crime 5 Sep 2008, 21:13

  • Japanese researchers check IDs with eyeball twitch

    'Spoof-proof' biometrics

    Biometric identity scanners are attracting more attention as safe way to handle user authentication and security. But a team of Japanese researchers claim current methods are bunk if approached by a sufficiently sophisticated intruder. Iris scans, electronic fingerprinting and signature recognition – they're certainly better …

    Security 5 Sep 2008, 21:18

  • World goes mad as Bill and Jerry eat churros

    Microsoft's Seinfeld ad ignores Microsoft

    Microsoft has debuted the first commercial starring its $10m Vista pitchman, Jerry Seinfeld. The ad shows the funnyman spotting Bill Gates shopping at a discount shoe store, whereupon churros, foot sizes, wearing clothes in the shower, and chewy computers are discussed – anything but Windows Vista, it seems. Reactions …

    Odds and Sods 5 Sep 2008, 22:58

  • MySQL daddy quitting Sun?

    'Technically, there is no resignation letter'

    MySQL co-founder Michael "Monty" Widenius may quit Sun Microsystems, less than seven months after Sun paid $1bn for his free database outfit. Yesterday, Valleywag reported that Monty - the primary architect of the original MySQL database - had resigned from the company, and though a MySQL marketing genius called the news "a …

    Applications 5 Sep 2008, 23:13