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A quick google and it would appear that perhaps an individual project was canceled, I have no idea where I read it in the first place (probably BBC or Gaurdian).

It seems the UK govt have been trying to introduce a key escrow scheme since at least 1996. Here is an article about proposed snooping laws in 1999, it doesn't specifically mention NHS but it would apply to all govt. departments if you consider the quote...

"These ministerial powers could compel key escrow as a condition for approval as a "Registered Cryptography Service Provider," said Caspar Bowden, director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research.".

It was called DART. The NASA page has headlines like "DARTing Into Space" and "DART Seeks its Target: NASA launches a DART to target an orbiting bull's-eye". The DART has hit its target now, what's the problem? ;-)
Also, DART stands for "Demonstration for Autonomous Rendezvous Technology"; I'd say it hasn't been a particularly good demonstration now, has it? (Reminds me of the Windows 98 launch (or oh, the recent CES as well).)
And notice from the article that this incident actually happened last year!

Say we start with 100Y = 10USD. A cube costs 9000Y for manufacturing/shipping/promotion/etc and sells for 10,000Y (100USD). That's a 1000Y profit on every unit sold.

If the USD drops %20 (vs. Y) then we have 80Y=10USD. But the cube still sells for 100USD (or 8000Y). Now we have -1000Y profit on every cube sold.

Also, very large companies that rely on real materials (manufacturers) will often hold large sums of money in foreign currencies to offset raw material cost fluctuations. Basically, hedging their bet so that they can still afford to buy widgets. So, if N bought plastic from the U.S. to make cubes, and the USD went way up vs. the Yen, they could still afford the plastic.

Having a strong currency relative to another country is bad for selling, but good for buying. This is why the U.S. has such a huge trade deficit with China. We keep buying t-shirts, but they don't buy anything from us.

I think that for Nintendo it's a combination of strong Yen and a big inventory of unsold hardware that they have to discount (ie. they've already spent the money but haven't sold the product).

Here's a link

BTW, it would affect Sony just as much if they were in the same position. Maybe they shorted the USD?

Anyway, it's pretty much moot. The loss was from 2-3 years ago. I think they probably have good controls in place now to smooth these things out.

This won't affect IE6 on Windows 2000, and it's worth noting that things like Flash will work just fine in Firefox, Mozilla or Opera on Windows too.

Maybe you mean this story? The sequence of events is actually reversed. The botnet operator had control of all these home PCs. He rented them out for DDoS and spam, and later he installed 180solutions adware to collect the affiliate fees.

... incredible ... amazing ... thoroughly impressed ... cool ... flat out amazing ... amazing ... unbelievably ... major ...

Lying astroturfer, fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion.

• First paragraph gives fake credentials to suck wary reader in. Check.
• Rest of article in hype overdrive. Check.
• Claims alternative points of view are troll/flamebait/bash. Check.
• Article is a disorganised mishmash of "positive" points. Check.
• Claims that making the equivalent of a procedure call to existing code is amazing. Check.
• Claims functionality that's been available for years under other names is somehow new. Check.
• Take home point links to further marketing drivel. Check.

It appears to have been mod'ed up by sock puppets too.

Don't think it's an astroturfer? Learn more about undercover marketing, M$' astroturfing history, non-M$ astroturfing, net astroturfing and non-net astroturfing.

---

The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".

Yea he's right there..Tech innovation is dead!
http://www.techweb.com/wire/networking/181504006;j sessionid=EMLBLGM0N2FAIQSNDBOCKH0CJUMEKJVN

The Slashdot title is quoting the title from techweb.com. Redirect your complaints to the author of the article. I'm assuming you didn't RTFA though.

MS will no doubt be up for fighting a SCO-like kamizaze attack. But I can't be the only person who spotted the way that MS will only do it if it doesn't cost much ?
According to Techweb (and many other sites), 25% of Office users will suffer the pain of having to alter apps because Microsoft didn't own some of the technology it shipped.
http://www.techweb.com/wire/software/179100683 Users are currently infringing patents now. But come the next update apparently MS will disable these features.
Thus your applications will go bang. I see that as bad.
Recall how MS issued the WMF vulnerability patch by remotely rebooting people's machines, including servers ?
If you buy an MP3 or DVD player which breaks someone's patent, it's hard to care if the manufacturer gets sued. But if you look at the Blackberry debacle, we see that a patent holder can reach into a user's equipment and disable it.
RIM is not a trivial firm, albeit smaller than MS, it has fought hard, but is losing.
MS lost it's case, and recall all the fights over tech in IE ?
Perhaps this is the real reason the MS is pandering to the copyright holders in the MPAA and RIAA for Vista ?

Thus we have both a legal and technical framework by which you can be shafted. MS can't protect you.
Like with viruses, it's very size makes it more vulnerable, and a more attractive target.
If you were a SCOlike entity would you rather extort $1 from every copy of Windows or Gentoo Linux ?
There are (I guess) >50,000 patentable things in Microsoft's product line. Most of which are of course prior art, or a few licenced or owned. But MS cannot afford even to buy off all the patent holders who might come after it.
Thus MS protection is very limited.
Part of my education was during the Cold War about the role of the British nuclear deterrent, which was a distant 3rd after Russia & the US. It couldn't destroy Russia, but could make an awful mess.
To me it points to what the open source movement should be moving towards with future versions of GPL etc.
By patenting a slew of s/w features, MS, Oracle et al now have something to fear.
The gangs of lawyers on contingency unleashed if MS tries to screw the O/S user base have the same deterrence as as the UK nukes. Not the end of the world, but the end of your world, which is good enough.
Since the lawyers are being used weapons, not as revenue generators, you can cut a deal where they get to keep all the money.
This means they will be more effective than the SCO gang, because their goal is to make a profit, not mutually assured destruction.

DCFC the Pimp. http://pauldominic.com/

What's the government thinking anyways? If they just tapped on Microsoft's shoulder I'm sure Bill would hand over all of MSNs search data.

Ummm...Bill DID just roll over and send the gov't MSN's search data...as did Yahoo and AOL.
http://www.techweb.com/wire/ebiz/177101984

if you goto the Windows Live.com site (hxtp://safety.live.com) to stop this malicious program/worm the MS site uses a malicious cookie exploit against you, if you deny the exploit you cant get to the site to get help

its like a Hospital saying "we have to break your leg so we can fix your arm"
they should be ashamed

If you want to spin things, you might say that MSN, AOL and Yahoo all lost value because they lost customer trust by selling them out. Well, look at this, I'm not the only person who thinks that way. If Google fails to keep their customer data confidential, all tech firms will suffer.

As for the crosshairs of the DOJ, has the reporter forgoten about the big M$ anti-trust case and continued monitoring? Microsoft is not in the crosshairs, they are in the jaws of the DOJ vice and can be squeezed at will. Any change in Washington's mood can have M$ paying fines or split into companies the size of a fruit stand.

You are correct, PC sales may have gone down but revenue has gone up. At techweb (http://www.techweb.com/wire/ebiz/177101419;jsessi onid=C4AULJWIPWEVOQSNDBECKH0CJUMEKJVN) they estimate that WoW brought in 200 million in 05, that alone puts it over last years earings. Add in the other MMO's and Steam and other online purchases and downloads and you have quite an increase. I would like to see how many people bought HL2 online, I bet quite a large percentage of their total sales came from there...it was a better price than most stores.

Yes, afterall we are all using NC's these days...

I've heard plenty about us blaming another vendor (whom I can't name)..

Unfortunately, it's not a problem that can be fixed until this unnamed vendor provides a patch.

The report found that there were more system failures experienced by Linux

I know when I think of Linux, I think of all the reboots, system halts and failures, and when I think of Windows I think of long-term servers that just run and run and run, even dry-walled over ... but hey, that's probably just 'cause I read the Executive Summary.

I looked at the list of papers and it reminded me of a Linux1394 article I read several years ago where FSM (Finite State Machine) Labs used the linux 1394 stack to provide an IO/Sensor feedback and control network to Pratt and Whitney for their Joint Strike Fighter engine test stand. The system provided full environmental control of the engine under testl The Pratt & Whitney engineers said they were very impressed with Linux's 1394 stack and it's real time ability to move literally hundreds of gigabytes of data in a very short time without hiccups or problems of any kind. That article was here: http://www.techweb.com/wire/26803973

The Bad Plus' lastest album "Suspicious Activity" (ironic!) has/had the DRM shit on it.

The Bad Plus is an innovative jazz band that I really enjoy. I loved their album "These Are the Vistas" and had put "Suspicious Activity" on my end-of-year buying list of CDs I missed earlier in the year. I was also planning to see them live in Minneapolis right after Christmas.

Then I saw the CD on the list.

I sent an email to the band's management and promoters telling them how upset I was that their CD could mess up my computer and how it was a terrible breach of trust between the artist and the listener.

Here's the message I got back the next day straight from their manager. I hope other affected artists and their management are as enlightened.

Greetings Foo Fighter:

The Bad Plus's manager here.

I empathize with your point of view that OF COURSE you shouldn't acquire a disk which can wreak the kind of havoc to your computer that has been reported to occur.

As you might imagine, this is an exasperating situation for us. We learned about the rootkit long after the fact and today all of us--you, The Bad Plus, other SONY/BMG creative artists, as well as SONY/BMG--are paying a price as a result of corporate's short-sighted, extraordinary folly.

Please be assured that neither the band nor management agreed to SONY's.....creativity. We were blindsided by this as well. I will forward your correspondence to the label and be assured it will have far greater impact than their interest in addressing the concerns of either The Bad Plus and their manager. That said, on behalf of the band, we're sorry Foo Fighter. Truly. Much is being done in an effort to remedy the current situation--and reportedly clean discs will soon be issued. Check out the following....

http://www.techweb.com/wire/security/173602071

So please don't penalize yourself.....either wait it out or consider acquiring the album via iTunes. It's a terrific recording. I also hope you'll reconsider not making the drive to Minneapolis. If you make it to the show, you'll get a special gift.

Thanks for writing and again, I'm so sorry for the frustration/upset/hassle/insanity.

All best to you-
Darryl Pitt

These are actions Google has actually taken:

Helped Chinese authorities to censor their subjects' Internet access.
(http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx ?NewsId=14130)

Selectively approved and refused ads, based on political content.
(http://www.unknownnews.net/google.html)
(http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040830/reilly)

Permanently collected search history for everyone who has ever used their site.
(http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html)
(http://www.techweb.com/wire/ebiz/161500535)

Permanently collected/indexed the email history and content of all gmail users, for marketing and law-enforcement use.
(http://mail.google.com/mail/help/privacy.html)

Filed obvious software patents.
(Refer to this slashdot story.)

For me, when people's actions directly contradict their words, I reduce my trust in them accordingly. Google can keep claiming to "do no evil," but the words are becoming more and more empty.

"How is it evil? It could be evil because its very powerful but in the right hands.. it could be good for everyone."

There's a simple way to tell if someone is likely to abuse power. When someone collects power over you, and states that it's for a purpose which doesn't require that power, you are being misled.

Sony Issues Patch As Hackers Pounce On Rootkit
Sony posts a patch that reveals files previously hidden by a rootkit.

But that may be closing the barn door after the horses have bolted.
http://update.techweb.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/erme0GTTVw 0G4T0DqlJ0Gp

Good luck downloading all those Windows drivers, especially if your ethernet card is one of them.

You said it. I've had this problem MANY times when installing Windows. But hey, atleast it gives you time to install a Firewall before this happens. That is, if you have it on disk (no thumbdrives won't work until you install those USB drivers)

I was so surpised after installing a few Linux distros that :gasp: I could use my usb mouse right away!

Microsoft ASP.NET and IIS Serve Majority of Fortune 1000 Sites http://www.techweb.com/showPressRelease.jhtml?arti cleID=X333718#_

Microsoft Leads Port80 Web Server Study According to the survey, 53.5 percent of the sites surveyed ran Microsoft IIS. This was more than double the 19.3 percent running Apache.
http://thewhir.com/marketwatch/mic030304.cfm

"Microsoft seems to be winning its war against Linux" (Info-Tech Research Group) http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/21/ 1318229&tid=109&tid=106

Slashdot = "preaching to the congration"

Rolf "get the facts" Tollerud

While you're paying at least $30 per month to use hotspots and cell phones to access your "ubiquitous web fileservice," I'll be enjoying my files on a hard drive and backing them up later to hard drives that I own.

The "computer paradigm" was all centralized-this and ubiquitous-that in the mainframe era, yet businesses and civilians have shown that they would rather own their own computer. How is Google making progress by reviving that business model where others have struggled?

Thats okay. The United States is the global leader in sending spam anyways.

http://www.techweb.com/wire/26804974/
http://news.com.com/U.S.+cooks+up+most+spam/2100-1 024_3-5322803.html/
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117336,0 0.asp/

If anyone wants to have a look at the report, I think this is probably it:
http://www.techweb.com/wire/security/159906119

While this might be funny (or insightful, whatever) now, Bill Gates and co. are hard at work making a DRM windows. In the not so distant future, windows will do its best to restrict its end users. See Vista and DRM

And I suspect that's why he drew a sentence of eleven months for what he did, instead of, say, twenty one months. Or thirty six months. Or 108 months.

Maybe I'll accept such penalties for children committing non-violent "hacking" crimes when we treat drunk drivers and wife-beaters and child-abusers and rapists with the same ferocity.

It doesn't have to be an either-or thing, really. If you feel that society doesn't give enough weight to the punishments in those crimes, you're far more likely to have success arguing that the penalties there should be stiffened. I'll not argue.

http://www.techweb.com/wire/26800325

And here's a quote from another article on the subject back in 2004:

http://www.techweb.com/wire/26803909

"The vulnerability in question is one of two noted as "critical" by Microsoft on Tuesday, when it released February's monthly fixes. Hackers could exploit flaws in Windows's usage of Abstract Syntax Notation (ASN), a language for defining the syntax of data messages shared between applications and computers. If attackers successfully created exploits, they could clandestinely destroy data, steal information, or compromise network security.

The bug has been characterized as one of the most serious ever due to its widespread use in many of the Windows operating system's security subsystems, including Kerberos and NTLM authentication, and in numerous server and desktop programs, such as Exchange and Internet Explorer.

The ANS vulnerability was first identified on July 25, 2003, by eEye Digital Security, but not fixed until more than seven months later.

And there's the rub.

'Microsoft had 200 days to fix this,' Mark Maiffret said in a teleconference. Maiffret is the chief hacking officer and a co-founder of eEye Digital Security, and the discoverer of the ANS vulnerability. "That's a ridiculous amount of time.'

To his credit, Maiffret kept quiet about the vulnerability while Microsoft worked on and tested a patch. Currently, there are no exploits circulating or pending.

In its defense, Microsoft said that the company needed the time to assemble,but more importantly, test, the fix. "This investigation required us to evaluate several aspects and instances of this pervasive functionality in order for our engineers to create a comprehensive and high quality fix," a company spokesperson said. 'This was an instance in which due diligence required us to very carefully evaluate the broadest possible implications of the anomaly.'

But that's no excuse, another analyst said Thursday.

'I recognize that Microsoft has thrown an incredible amount of money and resources at security issues,' said Laura DiDio, a senior analyst for the Yankee Group who has been tracking security for over 17 years. 'The company is under siege, no question. They're the number one target, like a policeman in Baghdad.

'Where I fault them -- even if you give them the benefit of the doubt -- is that you can't take seven months to patch a problem of this magnitude.'"

Did you catch that last? LAURA DIDIO, Microsoft shill par excellence, can't even justify that!

Firefox's share of the web browser market slipped a bit in July, while Internet Explorer gained by an equal amount, a website analysis firm said Friday.

Market share for the Mozilla Foundation's open-source browser dipped to 8.07 percent in July from a high of 8.71 percent in June, according to NetApplications, which gathered the data from the 40,000 websites it monitors.

Credit: TECHWEB
http://www.techweb.com/wire/software/168601321

• Mandatory buybacks (i.e. retailers who send your book back)
• Draconian Vendor Compliance terms (ie. ship us something with the wrong barcode and we fine you $500 a pop)
• Disfavorable Payment terms (i.e. Net 90 anyone?)
• Absolutely crap royalties for first timers
  
• Absolutely NO interest in you or your brand (i.e. you are a supplier to them, your art is no different than the paper it's printed on, they're out for the cheapest terms and have a line of a thousand others behind you waiting for a chance. They think nothing about throwing you out. You're just a vendor. That's it.

http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20010409S0012

We built 5 flight objects, 2 have gone boom, which accourding to my calculator is a 40 percent failure rate, and your suggesting we should just live with the risk?

Try measuring the risk with a suitable metric before you complain about it. Your 40% failure rate is rather flawed because it doesn't normalize for any of the variables that should go into it--flight hours, flight distances, number of missions per vehicle, etc. The way you measure it, it would be equivalent to buying 5 computers, letting them run 24/7 for 5 years, then complaining about a 40% failure rate when two of them crash the OS (obviously this probably is not any kind of a real OS... even *nixes would have trouble with that kind of uptime... though maybe a NetWare box could do it:).

Superconducting supercomputer. Too expensive but maybe need to build one to see how they work.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/hpcc/insights/vol6/supercom .htm

Using 'general' processors is cheap but the wrong direction according to the best supercomputer expert from Stanford. He designed some cray computers.

http://content.techweb.com/wire/26802955

HERE:

http://www.techweb.com/wire/ebiz/166401907

No it does not.

http://www.techweb.com/wire/security/165701363
http://www.mxlogic.com/news_events/07_11_05.html

I wonder whether Bullfighter, Deloitte's freeware program for detecting buzzwords, uses Bayesian filtering? Deloitte discovered a direct linkage between clear business talk and good business performance. In examining Enron's communications during its last three years, they found that as Enron began to sink, its press releases, financial reports, letters to shareholders, and speeches by top executives, became increasingly laden with ambiguous words and sentences.

Nope, Sorry. " Thursday, June 09, 2005 'Monad' Scripting Shell Unlikely to Debut in Longhorn

Seems you don't realize quite in how bad shape Longhorn is. It's quite likely that in the end this will be the recommended scripting language for .NET

• web hosting,
• high-performance computing and
• security(!!!).

Yeah, given Dell's past advice to Steve Jobs I somehow don't think he'd go for it.

in my next big project?

In all seriousness, I believe Schneier's right. We need a competition for a new hash function.

Nah, let's just wait for 24 to drop the words "MD5" before we know it's really bad.

Here, on Techweb.

http://www.techweb.com/wire/security/163106139

Yes MS did tell us what the key stood for, but of course you didn't want to know that (or you'd have done the obligatory Google search and found this or this or this). But you didn't bother to look; it would have messed up your 'M$ is teh evvil' arguments.

Of course you don't have to beleive them!

One of the more well-known was the one that VoIP filed, meant to stabilize the usability of internet phones for emergency calls by rerouting VoIP calls to emergency numbers through the conventional phone system.

Microsoft's patent isn't quite like VoIPs but my point is that if this was, say, a patent being filed by Google, a number of you who decry this move would be celebrating their the foresight and genius.

http://www.techweb.com/wire/ebiz/159903411

It might not be complete sharing, but it IS available.

Plus, there's the code from whoever cracked into Microsoft's development servers:

http://www.crn.vnunet.com/news/1152775

If the EU grants immunity (and maybe a big amount of Euros) to whoever gives them the code, I'm sure they could get their hands on it.

All this really points out is how ephemeral a "retail" software developer's business model really is. If the government doesn't prop such a business model up, then there's really nothing that the company can do to control their "product" once it leaves their immediate control.

Well had there been a COMDEX then maybe things like this wouldnt happen. http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jht ml?term=comdex&_requestid=508760 Taken from the Yahoo page with a link to techweb. Yahoo is really falling behind.

Neither (except if you're dumb enough to not have installed Windows XP SP2)

Windows XP SP1 with the for-free ZoneAlarm firewall, however, as well as Windows XP SP2, fared much better. Although both configurations were probed by attackers, neither was compromised during the two weeks.

My point is that Windows needs special steps to be _protected_;

Actually, in SP2 it doesn't. The XP firewall is turned on by default in XP2. In SP1, all you needed to do was turn on the firewall for a connection in the Network Connections control panel.

Now as far as local security goes, I agree with you; there are some nasty local security exploits. Microsoft is to blame for much of the security issues, but also a major part of the problem is third-party developers! It would help if application developers would realize that Windows is a multi-user system and actually follow Microsoft's reference guides for how to program in this environment instead of forcing the user to be an Administrator to actually use their program. Windows has been multi-user for years, and application developers still haven't caught up. Why do I have to be an Administrator to run a game? Bad programming, that's why! Not even Norton AV gets this right (scheduled scans do not run for non-administrators and a non-administrators are told that Live Update is off even if it is actually turned on). The only program that I've see actually try to do something about this is Nero, which has a program to set up a group to enable burning by non-administrator accounts, but even this is a special download that is not part of the regular install. This needs to change; developers need to start using the Windows multi-user environment correctly.

In summary, Microsoft provided the ability to make the system more secure using non-privileged accounts and groups like every other major OS, but application developers are not taking advantage of it. I always run as a non-privileged user, and I am getting sick of applications that have no reason to need administrator privileges not running correctly.

reminds me of this.