The Newspaper Shop -- Thursday edition

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Microsoft steps on three more bugs
Microsoft issued three security warnings late Wednesday affecting its popular SQL Server database, Windows XP operating system, and Word and Excel applications. The SQL Server flaw, which Microsoft deemed critical, is the most serious of the lot. Exploitation of the flaw would "allow a low-privileged user the ability to run, delete, insert or update Web tasks," according to Microsoft's security warning. The flaw affects SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 7, as well as Microsoft Data Engine 1.0 and Microsoft Desktop Engine 2000, which are used by developers building software using Microsoft’s Visual Studio development tools. Patches are available for the flaws for SQL Server 7 and SQL Server 2000. The patches also fix the flaw in Microsoft Data Engine and Desktop Engine.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-962409.html

New KDE desktop: Tricks and treats
The KDE League is preparing to release the first major upgrade to its Linux desktop software since last spring, including a lot of eye candy and a raft of other tweaks and improvements. The software is one of the two best known graphical user interfaces for Linux, the other being Gnome. Linux is an open source operating system that is generally used on servers, but is being pushed for desktop use by companies as diverse as IBM and consumer Linux maker Lindows.com. KDE 3.1 is due at the beginning of November, and the visual difference from its predecessor -- version 3.0 -- will be immediately obvious, the group hopes. The software will ship with an icon set called Crystal and a new theme called Keramik, both of which have hints of Apple's Aqua interface in Mac OS X and Microsoft's Windows XP styling. It will use a new theme manager and windows will have drop-shadows to give the desktop a three-dimensional look.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-962441.html

Apple has a free Jaguar for the teacher
Apple Computer is giving away copies of its latest operating system to school teachers, the company said Thursday. The Mac maker said Thursday that kindergarten through 12th grade teachers will be able to get free copies of its OS X version 10.2 operating system, code-named Jaguar, as well as training tools and copies of its iMovie, iPhoto and iTunes applications. The offer runs through Dec. 31. The company has historically been dominant in the education market, but that hold has been slipping. In its report report Wednesday, Apple noted that weak education sales were a factor in its fourth-quarter net loss. Apple could not immediately be reached for comment.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-962398.html

Acrobat: No longer a "roach motel"
Adobe Systems’ Acrobat software and the PDF documents it creates are often referred to as electronic paper, but for consumers they’ve been more like a stone tablet -- impervious to any user alteration. That’s starting to shift, according to current and former Adobe executives, as the format changes to handle new data demands. Additions using the XML Web services language and other tools will allow people to add signatures to PDF (Portable Document Format) documents or make formatting changes, for example. "At one point, Acrobat was known as the roach motel of data formats -- you could get data in, but you couldn’t get it out," Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen said here Wednesday night during a panel discussion run by Silicon Valley’s Churchill Club. "That’s not true anymore. Acrobat is this big container for doing things."
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-962402.html

Beta hack rattles Microsoft
Microsoft is investigating a security breach on a server that hosts its Windows beta community, which allows more than 20,000 Windows users a chance to test software that is still in development. As a result of the break-in, Microsoft advised beta testers to change their passwords late last week. However, company spokesman Rick Miller downplayed the significance of the incident, saying the online trespasser didn't get access to the company's crown jewels: its source code. "They are not grabbing code; they are grabbing product, and it's going to be buggy and it's going to have problems," he said. "This is obviously not good, but it's not terrible either." However, the system does contain yet-unreleased versions of Microsoft Windows products.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-962333.html

Software licensing -- a heated debate
Who knew that software licensing would ever turn into such hotly contested territory? A proposed law designed to streamline the way states treat software licensing has drawn fire from a number of parties, from librarians to chief information officers, software developers to consumer groups. They believe that the proposal in question, the Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act (UCITA), favors the interests of corporations over consumers. What's more, they say, the measure would let software companies dictate settlement terms in conflicts and potentially slow the development of better software applications. Laws, however, have not caught up to the PC era, according to the proposal's backers.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-962399.html

The jump to 40GB Ethernet
10Gbps Ethernet could run on copper, and the next speed version could be 40Gbps, says Bobby Johnson, CEO of Foundry Networks. Ethernet will continue to surprise us, says Johnson. Not only is 10Gbps running over copper cable unexpected, but Gigabit and 10Gbps Ethernet are finding uses in the enterprise, says Johnson. This is just as well for Foundry, since the company has specialized in Gigabit Ethernet, and found the majority of its market in dot-com service providers -- until recently. In fact, there are two separate efforts to put 10Gbps Ethernet on copper cabling -- even though when the standard was first finalized, it was widely believed that a worthwhile transmission distance would never be achieved on copper cables.
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupda...888680,00.html

Spammers slipping ads through Windows
Spammers have co-opted an administration feature in Microsoft's Windows operating systems and are using it to bring up intrusive advertisements on Internet-connected computers. The feature, known as the messenger service, typically lets a network administrator send warnings to users when, for example, a server is scheduled to go down for maintenance. Now some advertisers are using it to send bulk messages to anyone connected to the Internet with an accessible address. "Spammers are blindly sending their advertisements by randomly picking a series of Internet addresses," said Charmaine Gravning, product manager for Windows at Microsoft. "On computers without a firewall, a little messenger window pops up." The messenger feature, not to be confused with Microsoft's instant messaging applications, can use many different protocols to send a single message, according to Microsoft.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-962483.html?tag=fd_top_1

DOJ responds to House on Patriot Act
The public on Thursday got a look at the most extensive report to date on how the U.S. Justice Department has used a 2001 anti-terrorism law to conduct Internet and electronic surveillance. In four letters to Congress, totaling 61 pages, Assistant Attorney General Daniel Bryant said the USA Patriot Act has "provided critical assistance to the efforts of the department and the administration against terrorists and spies in the U.S." Powers awarded to federal police by the act have made it easier to obtain court orders to spy on cable-modem users, Bryant said. The act has also made it possible for FBI field offices to install wiretaps at Internet companies that are not in their jurisdiction, he said. In addition, airlines now receive full access to the FBI's list of suspected terrorists through a secure Internet site.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-962468.html?tag=fd_top_4

Pioneer blazing trail for DVD burning
Pioneer Electronics wants to make the holiday season fly by for DVD fanatics. The Long Beach, Calif.-based division of Tokyo's Pioneer on Thursday announced a new combination DVD-CD recordable/rewritable drive for PCs that cuts the time it takes to record a full-length DVD or CD in half. The new DVR-A05 drive trumpets speeds that double those of Pioneer's previous generation of internal drives: 4X DVD-R and 16X CD-R for "recordable" DVD and CD formats, which allow for onetime recording only, and 2X DVD-RW and 8X CD-RW for the rewritable formats, which let consumers record over unwanted data. The 4X DVD-R speed means that it will take drive owners only about 15 minutes to record enough data to fill a standard 4.7GB DVD-R disc, Pioneer Electronics said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-962457.html?tag=fd_top_9

European governments experiment with Internet elections
Who will ever forget the endless examinations of Florida’s paper ballots and the debates over “hanging” and “pregnant” chads after the 2000 U.S. presidential vote? Florida’s saga continued in September as technical glitches with new touchscreen voting machines marred gubernatorial primaries. In this digital age, there would seem to be an obvious fix to the problems created by Florida’s voting machines: Internet voting technology. But two years later, as the country again goes through an election cycle, talk of modernizing the U.S. system with technologies such as Internet voting has remained just that — talk.
http://www.technologyreview.com/arti...ation11102.asp

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