The Newspaper Shop -- Tuesday edition

[walktalker]

Viruses, hackers hit a third of Net users
Nearly 32 percent of Internet users surveyed in mid-July said they had been affected by a hacker or computer virus in the past two years. About 43 percent of them said they felt vulnerable on their home computers, while 17 percent felt they were vulnerable from viruses and hackers at work. The survey, conducted by Edelman, a public relations firm, questioned more than one thousand adults nationwide. American Internet users were warned by Microsoft last month of a new virus attack. On Monday, the new worm, MSBlast, infected at least 7,000 computers in a matter of hours, according to Symantec. Still, security experts said the spread was slowed because the virus program had several flaws.
http://news.com.com/2100-1002-5062759.html?tag=nl

Virus spreading, but impact moderate
The MSBlast worm is forcing IT staffs to work overtime, but the damage seems to be somewhat contained, at least in the working world. An existing patch, heightened security awareness and the relatively slow pace of the worm are combining to blunt the overall impact of the worm's spread, according to sources. Some companies have been forced to apply patches in the past 24 hours or inconvenience employees by temporarily taking them off the network, but significant damage is thus far light. "We've had sporadic reports of minor impacts, but by and large, the federal agencies continue to operate as normal," said David Wray, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "This worm doesn't appear to be very efficient."
http://news.com.com/2100-1002-5062916.html?tag=nl

Worm's spread shows holes in patch system
This week's MSBlast outbreak is raising old questions about the effectiveness of software patches that are intended to secure computers. The ability of the MSBlast worm to spread has underscored the view that today's methods of patching security flaws, while necessary to lock down specific computers, is too time-consuming to react to critical vulnerabilities. The result has been that the MSBlast worm, which by most accounts is poorly programmed, has quickly propagated across the Internet. The worm has infected at least 120,000 computers and has caused internal disruptions for many companies and Internet service providers.
http://news.com.com/2100-1002-5062832.html?tag=nl

McDonald's adds more Wi-Fi to its menu
Fast-food chain McDonald's said Tuesday that it plans to sell Internet access inside 100 locations in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas. Sixty of the 100 locations are already online and the balance will be available by September, a McDonald's spokesman said on Tuesday. The fast-food chain sells an hour of wireless access for $4.95, while a continuous 24-hour connection is $7.95. The Midwest is the last of three areas where the burger giant is tinkering with selling Web access via Wi-Fi, which creates 300-foot-radius areas where laptops can connect to the Internet without wires. The fast-food chain already sells Internet access inside 75 locations in both the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City.
http://news.com.com/2100-1039_3-5062949.html?tag=fd_top

Is Zip coming undone?
New versions of software based on a popular file-compression technology could create headaches for users through their use of incompatible formats. For more than a decade, Zip has been the most common format for shrinking files in order to more easily store them or transmit them over the Internet. Dozen of software programs, including tools built into recent versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system, can read and decompress any file bearing the .zip extension. But that accessibility has changed since the release, earlier this year, of a new version of the PKZip application for creating and reading Zip files from PKWare, the small, Wisconsin-based software maker that created and published the Zip standard. The new version and a subsequent update include advanced security features that -- for now -- are exclusive to PKWare.
http://news.com.com/2100-1046_3-5062...g=fd_lede2_hed

BMC widens support for Linux
BMC Software announced a new version of its Deployment Manager for Linux software Tuesday as well as increased support for enterprise Linux software. The management software maker said the move stands as evidence of its continued commitment to supporting the four phases of Linux management production: planning and server consolidation, deployment of Linux application software, infrastructure management and service management. BMC is one of a host of companies eager to support Linux now that the operating system is gaining wider acceptance among business customers. On Monday, BMC unveiled a Linux-focused Web site called LinuxValue.com as part of its bid to accelerate adoption of the operating system.
http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5062680.html?tag=fd_top

Can a subpoena stop a movement?
Call it a new front in the war over open source: SCO's decision to seek licensing fees from Linux users has the IT industry -- and IT investors -- pondering the legality of building for-profit products on Linux. While the market's initial reaction to the SCO announcement boosted its share price, it's not at all clear that SCO understands what it's up against -- or the opening it's giving industry titan IBM to line up as the defender of the little guy. Start with the fact that Linux isn't as much product as it is a movement. As the emblem of open source and brainchild of Linus Torvalds, Linux stands for the notion that progress is not proprietary. Given that SCO means to ration access to the secrets Linux's father set free, SCO's lawsuit is a little like locking the door on Martin Luther King Jr.'s jail cell and expecting to stop the civil rights movement.
http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-5062...ml?tag=fd_nc_1

Patents: part of due diligence
Investors scouring the Internet for technology companies to invest in typically carry a sort of checklist, a list of qualifications that companies must meet to earn their investment dollars. Things they watch for include healthy profitability, reasonable profit margins, a rational price-to-earnings ratio, a good roster of products, sufficiently competitive standing, and nice industrywide growth trends. These days, however, investors need to add one more requirement to the list: an impressive patent portfolio. Assessing a company's patents "should be part of an investor's initial due diligence," said Neil Smith, a partner at Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin. Smith points to research analysts hiring patent attorneys to review a company's prospects as one sign that patents have taken on new relevance in today's marketplace.
http://money.cnn.com/2003/08/11/tech...lweg/index.htm

Spam success stories bring junk mail evolution
Pornographic spam is on the decline and is being replaced by growth in areas such as healthcare and online gaming, according to mail filtering firm Clearswift. The change reflects an evolution in the kinds of spam users are receiving, as filtering forces spammers onto pastures new and success for certain products motivates the spammers to focus more on areas where there are rich pickings. The stats based on spam emails received by Clearswift's 16 million users show growing trends in the kinds of spam which are being sent. Pornography made up just 15.2 per cent of all spam - down from a high of around 20 per cent - while online gaming - such as casinos - is now the source of 7.2 per cent of spam, a figure which is rising rapidly due to a lightening of gaming regulations.
http://www.silicon.com/news/165-500001/1/5560.html

Unholy Matrimony: Spam and Virus
In June, half of all e-mail was spam -- those annoying unsolicited messages that hawk everything from porn and Viagra to mortgage-refinancing deals and weight-loss patches. But if you think spam is out of control, prepare yourself. It could get a lot worse. Over the past few months, e-mail security companies have seen mounting evidence that spammers are using virus-writing techniques to assure that their sales pitches get through. At the same time, intrepid virus writers have latched onto spammers' trusty mass-mailing techniques in an effort to wreak widespread digital mayhem. "What we're seeing is the convergence of the spammer and the malicious code writer," says David Perry, global director of education at antivirus company Trend Micro.
http://businessweek.com/technology/c...7863_tc047.htm

Microsoft Vows To Crush The Mouse That Roared
A federal jury ruled that Microsoft should pay tiny Eolas Technologies and the University of California $521 million for infringing on their patent for sending software applications over the Internet. But Microsoft, as is its habit, insists that the jury verdict is not the end of the story but the beginning, that it did nothing wrong and even if it did that the remedy is out of whack with the wrong. This is what Microsoft often says after losing a trial and before the inevitable appeals. The lawsuit was filed in 1999 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois by Michael Doyle, founder of Eolas Technologies in Chicago, who patented technology in 1994 when he was at UC San Francisco that allowed Web-page developers to embed interactive programs in Web pages.
http://www.forbes.com/home/2003/08/1...artner=newscom

Flash drive maker adds boot feature
In a move that may speed the death of floppy disk drives, M-Systems on Tuesday said its USB flash memory storage device can now start a PC's boot-up process. M-Systems said that if users plug the flash memory device into the USB port of a computer that has crashed and turn on the power, the machine will start to boot up. Booting up a computer loads an operating system into its main memory. "We believe the new bootability function will provide users with a world of benefit, including those owners with slimline laptops that no longer need to carry their external disk or CD drives," said Blaine Phelps, director of worldwide marketing for M-Systems' DiskOnKey business unit.
http://news.com.com/2100-1004_3-5062987.html?tag=cd_mh

Postal ID plan creates privacy fears
A government report that urges the U.S. Postal Service to create "smart stamps" to track the identity of people who send mail is eliciting concern from privacy advocates. The report, released last month by the President's Commission on the U.S. Postal Service, issued numerous recommendations aimed at reforming the debt-laden agency. One recommendation is that the USPS "aggressively pursue" the development of a so-called intelligent mail system. Though details remain sketchy, an intelligent mail system would involve using barcodes or special stamps, identifying, at a minimum, the sender, the destination and the class of mail. USPS already offers mail-tracking services to corporate customers. The report proposes a broad expansion of the concept to all mail for national security purposes. It also suggests USPS work with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to develop the system.
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-5062617.html?tag=cd_mh

Wish You Were Here, Send Brains
The bodies of the robotic probes Spirit and Opportunity are hurtling through space toward their destinations on the surface of Mars, with a vibration-damaged spectrometer the only apparent scar from their launch traumas. Now all NASA has to do is send part of their brains chasing after them. The Mars Exploration Rovers will land in January 2004 and undertake tasks far more complex than the 1997 Pathfinder mission that featured the wheeled Sojourner robot, while using much the same hardware. In order to fit in all the extra instructions, engineers will delete information while the probes are en route and upload new programs. The swaps won't be quick. "The bit rate for the data link en route is about 500 bits per second and about 11,000 bits per second on Mars from the rover, which uses a higher-gain antenna," Dave Kleidermacher, vice president of engineering with NASA contractor Green Hills Software.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,59983,00.html

Luxury Loo: The Seat Also Rises
Steve Marshall vividly remembers the night he was terrorized by a toilet. Marshall, an embedded systems programmer, had just arrived in Tokyo to deliver a sales pitch. After a couple of hours happily spent swilling sake to celebrate the closing of a deal, he, not surprisingly, had to use the facilities. "When I approached the toilet, the lid lifted automatically," said Marshall. "Then, as I stood in front of it, the seat also lifted. All I could think was, whoa … haunted bathroom! I just could not urinate for fear of what might happen next." Marshall, like most other Americans who spend any time in Japan, eventually learned to use and even enjoy the high-tech toilets installed in many homes, offices and public spaces. Soon, Americans can have their very own brainy bathrooms. Toto, Japan's largest toilet maker, plans to aggressively market its products here over the next few months.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,59979,00.html

New Worm Mocks 'Billy' Gates
A worm targeting Windows users was spreading rapidly around the world Tuesday, triggering computer crashes and slowing Internet connections. The worm, christened Blaster but also known as LoveSan or MSBlaster, carried a message for Microsoft's chairman: "Billy Gates why do you make this possible? Stop making money and fix your software!!" Blaster, which zeroes in on the Windows 2000 and Windows XP operating systems, has been timed to attack a Microsoft security website distributing the patch needed to stop the worm in its tracks before it hits millions of users. It specifically targets the latest versions of the Windows software and experts predict home users will be hit hardest. The vast majority of the world's computers are equipped with one form or another of Windows software.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,59987,00.html

RFID chips sent to the dry cleaners
Chipmaker Texas Instruments on Monday announced a wireless identity chip for clothing which can survive the dry cleaning process, creating a new market for a technology that is expected to revolutionize the way products -- and people -- are tracked and identified. The Laundry Transponder, from TI Radio Frequency Identification Systems, is a thin 13.56MHz radio frequency identification (RFID) chip with a circumference of 22mm that can be attached or sewn into fabric. Its plastic casing is capable of withstanding industrial cleaning processes, making it practical for dry cleaners to track items through to customer delivery. Each transponder has a unique 64-bit identification code, as well as 2,000 bits of memory that can be programmed with customer data. The identification code can be laser-etched on the transponder casing for visual identification, TI said.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5062542.html

Muscle power aid also boosts brain power
A dietary supplement used by many athletes to boost muscle power can also increase brain power, at least in vegetarians. New research shows that non-meat eaters taking the supplement, called creatine, perform better in various memory tests than those taking a placebo. However, it is not yet clear if the benefits would apply to meat-eaters, as they already gain creatine from their diet. It is also uncertain whether the effects persist for as long as people continue taking the supplement, or whether it diminishes after a few months. Creatine helps cells replenish their stocks of a chemical called ATP, which is the immediate source of energy for cellular processes such as the contraction of muscle fibres. Athletes often take creatine for sports such as sprinting that require intense bursts of energy.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994047

Court tells RIAA to take subpoenas somewhere else
The race is on between file-traders and the RIAA's lawyers to see who can do more damage to the music labels' bottom line. As of Friday, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) legal team has captured a comfortable lead in this contest. A Massachusetts court has sided with two universities, ruling that the RIAA cannot run a centralized subpoena sweatshop from Washington D.C. and expect to attack all 50 states. The court has called on the RIAA to file subpoenas against file-traders in their respective jurisdictions. This ruling must sting the RIAA. The music label mob may well have to go back and re-file thousands of subpoenas - a costly, time-consuming process.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32303.html

Dutch anti-piracy group targets file swappers
Dutch anti-piracy organisation Protection Rights Entertainment Industry Netherlands (BREIN) is going after individual music files swappers and will bill or prosecute people who offer large amount of files through services as KaZaA, Gnutella and Grokster. BREIN has an impressive track record of battling counterfeit software, CDs and movies. Its partners include the movie industry's local trade organisations, Dutch recording industry bodies, as well as the Association of Phonogram Retailers. All criminal investigations are carried out by the FIOD-ECD (Fiscal and Economic Crime Service), which operates under the supervision of a special unit of the Dutch Public Prosecution Service. Last year BREIN carried out over 6000 private investigations, most of them into the offer of illegal digital files on the internet. More than 200 illegal online dealers were closed down.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32290.html

Internet firms tell music industry they don't want cop role
A lobbying group representing hundreds of Internet companies criticized the recording industry's war on Net piracy Monday as a "legal fishing expedition" that could result in higher service fees for customers. NetCoalition of Washington, D.C., sent a letter to Recording Industry Association of America President Cary Sherman questioning the RIAA's attempts to use copyright law to uncover the names of individuals who share song files using popular programs like Kazaa and Grokster. The NetCoalition letter, endorsed by the California Internet Service Provider Association and several ISPs, also questioned whether the RIAA has a hidden agenda to turn ISPs into Web police.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl....DTL&type=tech

Phone tones 'to beat CD singles'
Sales of mobile phone ringtones are set to overtake CD singles, according to new figures - providing a much-needed "shot in the arm" for the music industry. Sales of ringtones - which are more profitable to record companies than singles - are expected to rise 60% this year, said the Mobile Data Association (MDA). An estimated £70m of ringtones will be sold in 2003 - up from £40m in 2002 - according to the MDA, a non-profit trade group. Music company Universal told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the profit margin for recent Sugababes hit Round Round was larger on the ringtone than the single. Most pop hits are available to buy as mobile phone rings - as are other popular tunes such as TV themes - for between £1.50 and £3.50.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...ic/3143651.stm

More news later on

[multi]

as usual a nice round up of stuff there..thx WT