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We have PCI-DSS for companies that deal with credit card information.

Yeah because *that* works so well.

Relevant quote:
"I'm not surprised to see another large credit card breach; they will continue to happen because the impact is not a large one to the business," Doten said. "Being PCI-compliant doesn't make you secure; it only protects you from the lawsuits."

Reminds me of when Experian basically let all thier data be stolen too. The purchased a company that then stole the data. Or when all 3 credit agencies had a breach. But they sure got thier due when the hundred billion dollar fines rolled in!!! Just kidding of course, barely a slap on the Wrist. Nothing is going to happen and Equifax will promise not to do it again - until it happens again in about 18 months.

Industrial IoT Strategy Is Top Of Mind For Partners....yep, harder. http://www.crn.com/news/intern...

https://isc.sans.edu/diary/wor...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
http://www.dshield.org/diary/W...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
http://tech.slashdot.org/story...
http://tech.slashdot.org/story...
http://www.zdnet.com/au/optus-...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
http://www.dshield.org/diary/N...
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.co...
http://www.crn.com/news/securi...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

APK

P.S.=> Next is SECURITY BREACHES due to DNS failures... apk

http://www.crn.com/news/channe...

> They were suffering from price competition

Not just price competition: they were also suffering profoundly from fraudulent Cisco hardware.

          http://www.crn.com/news/networ...

Not only does it cost Cisco profits to lose the legitimate sale, but it costs them profoundly in customer support for the purchasers of fraudulent Cisco hardware. And Cisco support is a very large business cost to Cisco.

Yeah! Who the fuck thought that was a good idea?

IIRC it was Cisco.

'In a CSI job posting in December, Microsoft said candidates would need to be able to

“Win share against Open Source Software (OSS) in the cloud, on devices, and in traditional workloads by changing perceptions of Microsoft and winning the socket.”'

“The core of this role is to win mind-share so that Microsoft can win market-share.” ref

But Intel is getting out of the motherboard business?

In the spirit of hope I google'd "intel to continue manufacturing motherboards for servers" and was rewarded instantly with "Intel Denies Report It Will Exit Server Motherboard Business by Rob Wright on June 11, 2013". Short short form, intel has server motherboard products planned through 2015 and their official statement is that they are "looking forward to being the trusted partner to the server channel for many years to come".

I am not always a massive intel fan, but when it comes to motherboards I am pretty solid. I have long been somewhat religious about only using intel chipsets with intel processors (and indeed, AMD chipsets with AMD processors — my K6-related experiences with other manufacturers left me with no desire to experience such delights again) and as previously stated, have generally had good experiences with intel motherboards whether in servers or desktops. They are the IBM of PC servers to me, as amusing a statement as that might be.

Smell something? Hokus! Pokus!

You seem to be making some incorrect assumptions. There was a bidding process. Amazon's bid was selected over IBM's. IBM did protest. They lost.

"Tens of thousands of Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) Surface tablets with Windows RT, a device the channel has yet to see, are being sold at deeply discounted prices or simply given away to teachers and schools over the next month, prompting some to question if Microsoft's recent price slashing has more to do with unloading inventory than with pushing into the education vertical.
" http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/240157205/microsoft-surface-rt-dumping-inventory-or-investing-in-education.htm

In addition to security there is also the ease of maintenance that you gain by eliminating windows. But security alone should be enough to force the decision by insurance companies offering 'hacker insurance': Time may go by and the name may change, but it is still the old NT kernel underneath.

The Vista series is as vulnerable as XP. That includes Vista 7 and Vista 8. Every few months you have vulnerabilities that affect the whole zoo. On top of that you have a thriving ecosystem of malware flame and Conficker. New malware arrives and joins the old which never really goes away. It is the whole system that is weak, not just the pieces. Not even new, unready systems like Haiku-OS have that. The only way to leave it behind is to leave Windows behind.

No, the only real change since more than 10 years ago has been how M$ has been gaming the vulnerability reports and CERT. Even the shills and astroturfers defending M$ are nothing new.

Microsoft is NEVER clean.

SEC probes Microsoft's accounting methods

http://news.cnet.com/SEC-probes-Microsofts-accounting-methods/2100-1001_3-227883.html

Microsoft Agrees To Refrain From Accounting Violations in SEC Settlement

http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/18819490/microsoft-agrees-to-refrain-from-accounting-violations-in-sec-settlement.htm

Welcome to 2009.
Just a very few:

http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/mobility/218900171/10-app-store-rejects-scenes-from-apples-app-graveyard.htm

http://nearlybanned.com/

Slammer worm crashed Ohio nuke plant net

Slammer Worm Hit FirstEnergy

Slammer worm crashed Ohio nuke plant network

US blackout was computer related

I remember seeing articles about the use of holographic storage medium with 500 GB potential http://www.crn.com/news/storage/217200230/ge-unveils-500-gb-holographic-disc-storage-technology.htm . Don't know if it will ever come around, but it would be a possible physical media source (assuming that the read speeds were fast enough)

Well, there are some ways. Sometimes companies force their employees to sign agreements that state they cannot immediately go to work for a client or competitor. Also, there are some contracts that may forbid clients from hiring employees away from the company for a certain time.

Either way, they're being complete shits. GM already decided to pull the contract probably for the obvious reason: because HP is going down due to incompetent management and GM needs to have IT people it can rely on.

And suing their former employees right after announcing a 20,000 person layoff is really going to cement their reputation as a company that shits on its employees and nobody good is going to want to work there ever again. How many of those 20,000 employees' jobs could have been saved if HP hadn't blown $10 Billion on Autonomy. By my rough calculation... ALL OF THEM.

Other HP story of the day, HP May Dispose of Business Units that Don't Meet Targets.. "Wow!" their business managers will say, "Maybe there IS a way to get rid of my boss."

meanwhile somewhere in redmoon, a chair flies through the air.

IN THE NEWS

AT&T Launches Microsoft Office 365 for Midsize Businesses

EPA Subscribing To Microsoft's Office 365 Cloud Apps For 25,000 Employees

HP, Microsoft Office 365 Modernize Department of Veteran Affairs [600,000 Employees]

Announcing Office 365 for Government: A US Government Community Cloud

Microsoft Office for iOS, Android to have Office 365 subscription tie-in: Report

Sure thing, but it's not new news.

http://www.crn.com/news/networking/220100939/south-korea-lifts-apple-iphone-ban.htm

Google is your friend.

Given that Apple is actively adding Secure Boot Chain to their own devices, I wouldn't place a bet on them as the safe hardware platform here. Normally I buy used Lenovo laptops to put Linux on them. If Microsoft's Secure Boot starts to be more of an issue, I'd probabaly switch to a Linux hardware rebranding company like Emperor Linux to make sure I didn't end up with a problem system.

Yeah MS handles low end hardware well -- just look at how great those "Vista Capable" machines turned out....

http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/channel-programs/206905984/tracing-microsofts-vista-capable-debacle.htm

If there were roaming bands of people looking to do such things, they could already do them. A chainsaw is cheaper than a computer if you want to kill the electricity for a whole branch of people. For an individual, all you have to do is pull the meter.

Besides, the utilities have a powerful incentive to keep the meters secure.

"PC gamers will get to play Carmageddon 4 first [...] MacOS & Linux versions will follow the PC version later in 2013."

... right... because Linux and OS X run on Xbox. Or is it the Playstation 3?

Xbox

Concering point 2, With Windows 8, Microsoft is adding VDI licensing which boils down to: tablet access requires a CDL license (which costs extra). Unless you're using Windows R/T, of course.

I accept your challenge.

http://www.techspot.com/news/22178-wardriving-credit-card-thief-gets-9-years-in-jail.html
http://www.crn.com/news/security/26806554/wardrivers-plead-guilty-sentenced-to-jail-time.htm

and one from the UK:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/6565079.stm

References here and here.

Simple:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/seagate-samsung-acquisition/
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/07/western-digital-drops-4-3-billion-to-acquire-hitachi-gst-enter/
http://www.crn.com/news/storage/188100939/seagate-wraps-up-maxtor-acquisition.htm

When/if the Hitachi acquisition closes, you only have two vendors in the spinning magnetic disk market. Last time there was a large industry shift to shorter warranties, one or two companies did not and after a few months the rest of the industry moved back. With only two companies in play, it's far less likely someone will retain long warranty as a competitive advantage. Same reason why the flood was so devastating, one company consolidates so much in one location and a natural disaster wipes out half the manufacturing capacity of that industry.

Who told you this? Last time there were updates for my Lion machine it informed me that updates were available and offered me the choice of whether or not to install them.

It's details of MacOS Lion

that have been well published that MacOS Lion has automated security updates. Some updates require approval.

This doesn't preclude the possibility of Apple installing other security updates to installed apps without approval in the future, or of removing 'banned' apps entirely (supposing Apple deemed the app to be bad, or in violation of Apple's policies for the Mac app store).

Do you think they are reserving rights to do so in the EULA, for no reason?

There have been no mistakes, Reed Hastings is on the board of Microsoft. He is not an irresponsible madman, he is a traitor, a mole, a potted plant.

But the purchasing agent doesn't use the equipment; he/she just buys it for others and can't tell the difference between prime rib and hamburger. I'm not speculating; I'm telling you what happened. The point here is that Defense Department procurement is essentially encouraging vendors to sell them counterfeits, all in the name of saving money. My source is from 2007: Fakes: Can You Tell The Difference?

Thanks for the tip on emails. I'll check it out.

Technology wise SPARC *was* ahead of Intel and IBM (Power Architecture) but not anymore.

Even Oracle acknowledges that their hardware business is suffering, one of the reasons Sun was a prime candidate for acquisition in the first place. The decline of SPARC is lamentable but no more than say the death of most RISC systems and manufacturers. Oracle is mentioned as something that has to be on big iron, so that's why they bought Sun? Look, Ellison making hardware makes about as much sense as them pushing their Exadata product which, I was unfortunate to be in one of the first shipments of these kludgy piles of junk. Guess what they're pushing more of! Exadata! blah!

There will be ways of taking that "big iron" approach to data, hence initiatives like NOSQL which I believe is whimsical just like Ruby on Rails, but we'll see..... ;-)

I don't think that plays out anymore with Nehalem and Sandy Bridge. Itanium was a dead architecture the minute AMD launched its x86-64 initiative which forced Intel to go along for the ride.

As I read it from Oracle's SPARC road map (that still sounds funny) through 2015 they will be focusing on the T3 architecture, 16 Cores/128 threads per core which follows right along with the SPARC architecture over the past few years. The speed though is still less than 2GHz/sec, 1.65 actually, which when SUN was still in charge was a target. Essentially not much more clock speed but more threads via more cores on a socket. I won't get into a "which is better" but SPARC has been languishing and with Oracle pushing aside support for OpenSolaris and pushing support for Solaris X86, it just starts to get confusing as to what their plans are for the hardware and O/S side of the business. They also have Oracle Linux (Repackaged RHEL) which further clouds things up.

Right now however I'm getting on the x86-64 architecture because it's the volume of shipped systems that's a key player here. Back when Power7 was launched by IBM, there was this article and it is true, UNIX is dying. Linux is growing and so is Windows Server in the Data Center.

CRN Article

bribery, hidden agendas, employee abuse, poor environmental practices

Did you even try googling any of those? Perhaps you've been so poorly bribed that, abused by Microsoft though you may be, your hidden agenda is to astroturf on tech news sites, polluting them?

Bribery:

• 2005-2010 Bing "Loyalty Rewards" program - widely derided as an attempt to grab customers with bribes. If Bing is as good as they want it to be, why do they need to offer cash?
• 2007 OOXML ISO process bribes - you may want to argue about rewarding people for using Microsoft products, by "competitive behavior" maybe you mean offering incentives to a few key people to get things done. But for a standards process, that is bribery. Standards must be evaluated on their technical merit alone. (PDF warning)
• 2006 Bloggers bribed with laptops - when every news site is calling it a bribe, I'd say it's not just "competitive behavior."

Hidden Agendas

• 2010 - Microsoft's shell company, Attachmate, attempted to buy 882 patents from Novell.
• 2007 - Here's the same wired story about OOXML. I'm not going to do your googling for you; this one's obvious.
• 2005 - Microsoft's addition of PDF support. I didn't even know about this one, but it turns up in a google search... Dude, do your own homework next time.

Employee Abuse

• Have you never heard of throwing chairs? Seriously?
• Microsoft's continuing problems with their Chinese workforce - remember, don't hire them directly. Farm it out to a subsidiary to distance yourself from the inevitable PR disaster.

Poor Environmental Practices
Did you mean to suggest Microsoft is a hardware company?

Or can we count all the useless trash they have pushed out the door, forcing users to reformat their machines as soon as they buy them so they can downgrade to a decent OS, Vista ending up straight in the landfill?

Two articles this and one refered to by the first state "facts" that are in opposition.

The first states that the accused ran their tool June 5 to June 9th, and released on July 10th.
The second states that AT&T fixed the hole on June 8 and told affected users about the breach on June 9th.

I see reports that this information was on Gawker on the 9th, not the 10th.

I see reports from June 14 that AT&T sent messages claiming to have learned of the fault June 7th. This seems likely to have been because Auernheimer and Co. tipped them off through a third party, and waited for AT&T to close the hole. This also explains the claim "we never heard from (these people)", as well as the hole being closed before the news went public.

Two articles this and one refered to by the first state "facts" that are in opposition.

The first states that the accused ran their tool June 5 to June 9th, and released on July 10th.
The second states that AT&T fixed the hole on June 8 and told affected users about the breach on June 9th.

I see reports that this information was on Gawker on the 9th, not the 10th.

I see reports from June 14 that AT&T sent messages claiming to have learned of the fault June 7th. This seems likely to have been because Auernheimer and Co. tipped them off through a third party, and waited for AT&T to close the hole. This also explains the claim "we never heard from (these people)", as well as the hole being closed before the news went public.

Claiming that he wanted to help AT&T improve its security, he wrote a computer script to extract the data from AT&T and then went public with the information.

Claiming to help? That is a great excuse there. They found a security hole in the system and instead of just reporting it to AT&T they pulled down private information which they did NOT have the right to access. In other words I left my front door unlocked, this doesn't give you the right to go in and snoop around and take my stuff, you CAN however report to me and the newspaper that my door is unlocked. That is why these "hackers" are in trouble. AT&T probably looked at the exploit and then realized not only was there a problem but the people reporting it took private and sensitive information, this then required them to go to the legal system because their liable for this. Most of these major companies have insurance to cover these types of incidents but unless they follow protocol the insurance might not pay out.

Also the article attached to slashdot is missing information. They also gave the private information to Gawker.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/storage/security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000863&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All

And in apparently chat logs exists of these "hackers" discussing to sell or use this information in an illegal way.

http://www.crn.com/news/security/229000878/feds-nab-web-trolls-in-at-t-ipad-hack.htm

As of about seven years ago, yes, you can run flash applications offline.

Assange wants to act like he's just a whistle blower.

He's not a whistle blower, he's an anarchist. I don't really think he believes he's going to stop war by somehow leveling the playing field. I personally think he's doing this to get even for the perceived notion that this US administration hasn't worked fast enough to get out of Iraq/Afghanistan. Because if he had any real sense he'd realize he could very possibly start a bigger war in the near future.

But he was able to give an interview to Time magazine in which he called for Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, to resign. "She should resign, if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering US diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the US has signed up. Yes, she should resign over that," he said.

Nice job of pot calling kettle--he's doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING. He is also committing acts of espionage.

What surprises me is two things: 1) Surely they would have better charges than this they could use against him. 2) Why has no one been able to sink Wiki Leaks. A couple of DOS attacks? Surely if any major governmental power had wanted to, they would have "sunk his battleship" by now.

Your recollection is correct. Sun did buy Star Division.

I'm guessing the reason for some of the comments in this thread (wherin big bad Oracle is raping an innocent FOSS project) is just that people don't know or have forgotten that Sun paid for Star Office and then released it as a free gift to humanity.

(OK, the last part was sort of unicorny, but no more than the characterizations of Larry Ellison and Oracle.)

Thats because they were made by TI:

http://www.crn.com/hardware/206504527;jsessionid=JH3QI5R0XZVC5QE1GHRSKHWATMY32JVN?pgno=2 - this was a device built to develop Android on OMAP cpu's. It was never even intended to resemble a shipping product.

The first Official Google/HTC dev phones shipped to the public like the ADP1 and ADP2 were made by HTC - and was a slider that can be totally operated by touch - so I dunno - Android 1.0 certainly seemed more touch friendly than WinCE ever has been.

That's one of the coolest things about Android though - the OS is really designed from the ground up to be compatible with whatever input metaphor you care to design - whether is a blackberry like device, mouse/keyboard, touch, voice command or stylus it has support for it.

• On Bluetooth phone viruses, apparently the next big thing in malware (2004): "If you don't know about bluejacking these messages can be quite a shock" (2004)
• On the groundswell of Mac malware: "This means two real viruses have emerged for the Mac OS X platform in less than a week. The question on everyone's lips is - when will we see the next one, and will it have a more malicious payload?" (2006)
• On "naming and shaming" (his words) countries from whose IP address space spam appears to emanate: "A new dirty 'gang of four' - South Korea, Brazil, India and their ringleader USA - account for over 30% of all the spam relayed by hacked computers around the globe." (2010)

It is a bit rich that he's asking Tavis whether he "feels good about himself." Just saying.

"Will someone please squash this bug please."

Better yet, warm up your arm and be the first one to throw your best shot! Mulligans are allowed. My favorite McBride quote from a CRN Interview:

"
CRN: This lawsuit is very unpopular among many in the open-source community.

McBride: We're either right or we're not. If we're wrong, we deserve people throwing rocks at us..."

Really? They used to charge manufacturers for every computer they sold whether or not it had windows, this is a fact. They have already said that Linux infringes on their patents, this is a fact. Assuming they would continue to charge manufacturers or pursue lawsuits on their "intellectual property" if they weren't restrained in some way isn't FUD, it is logical deduction.

Most people on /. are technical persons, and I wouldn't have to give them these direct links. Most people, including people like myself who actually use some Microsoft products, already have come to the same conclusion, that Microsoft has abused it's monopoly in the past and would likely do so even more if not for being partially restrained. No fear mongering needed, history speaks for itself.

How many keygens contain malware? How many times have people downloaded movies to suddenly discover that the movie only plays in a "special exe-based player". Do we really need to revisit the iWork-crack botnet example? People who are trying to steal people's data online have a huge incentive to pay crackers to crack software and infect it with Malware. They have "no incentive to include malware in their cracks"? Yeah, right.

First Mac Botnet Stems From iWork, Photoshop Trojans
http://www.crn.com/security/216700006

iWork Trojan reappears in Photoshop CS4 crack
http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/core-dump/22865-iwork-trojan-reappears-in-photoshop-cs4-crack

I re-read the summary. I don't see any place where the EU Government *mandates* MS display the top 12 most-popular browsers. My reading of the summary doesn't tell us who made that decision, and I initially assumed it was Microsoft itself.

So I googled it: "The EU said Tuesday that European users will be asked to choose in a Web browser bake-off among 12 free Web browsers." - http://www.crn.com/software/223101178

http://www.crn.com/hardware/223300173;jsessionid=B1V040G2ULN1LQE1GHPSKH4ATMY32JVN

"Ipex has been supplying computer components to the technology industry for over 10 years with the goal of providing quality products and services to our customers. Recently we were referenced in connection with some counterfeit Intel Core i7 920 Microprocessors sold within the US market. While we purchased these products in good faith from a supplier we are very disappointed to learn of the questionable status of these products and are taking appropriate action to resolve the issue for any impacted Ipex client as well as are fully cooperating with Intel's investigation in to determining the original source."

Unfortunately, the right to run Outlook without a separate Office/Outlook license was dropped as of Exchange 2007 CALs. Exchange 2010 CALs do not include this either.

There was the guy who locked out administrator privileges in the San Francisco computer system. He recently went on trial in December, but I have not heard a verdict.