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Domain: zdnet.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to zdnet.com.
Stories · 2,686
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FL Court Rules Against Spouse-Installed Spyware
idobi writes "A Florida court ruled that it was illegal for a wife to install spyware on her husband's computer, in order to catch him in an extramarital affair. The three judge panel barred the woman from using the chat records from being introduced as evidence in the divorce proceedings. The court ruled that the software, Spector, violated Florida's wiretapping law - which states that it is criminal to 'intentionally intercept' any 'electronic communication.'" -
OSI Hopes To Decrease Number of Licenses
Noksagt writes "Various outlets report that the OSI may cut down the increasing number of Open Source licenses. Right now there are about 50 approved licenses; incompatible licenses confuse and impede developers and end users alike. The OSDL has been pushing hard for this at LinuxWorld. Sam Greenblatt, a member of the OSDL board, said 'Eventually there should be three licenses: The GPL, a commercial version of the GPL, and, of course, there will be the BSD because you can't rid of it.'" -
Cisco Evolving Into A Security Company
ChipGuy writes "Om Malik has an opinion piece stating his opinion that Cisco Systems is slowly becoming a security company, a move which may prove problematic for traditional security vendors like Symantec. Cisco has bought its way into the market, worried about the security moves of its main rival, Juniper Networks. The company expects to make major announcements at the RSA Conference later this week. " -
Are Betas Taking On Lives of Their Own?
Ant writes "CNET News.com's Paul Festa thinks the final stage of software development, beta versions, are taking on a life of their own, as companies tinker endlessly with their products in public according to a recent article. Google is one of the companies that keep using "beta" term for years for its products." -
House Approves Electronic ID Cards
chrisaj5 writes "ZDNet News reports that the Real ID Act of 2005 has been passed by the House, by a 251-161 margin. It stipulates that driver's licenses must include a digital photograph, anticounterfeiting features and undefined machine-readable technology." From the article: "Another portion of the bill says that states would be required to link their DMV databases if they wished to receive federal funds. Among the information that must be shared: All data fields printed on drivers' licenses and identification cards, and complete drivers' histories, including motor vehicle violations, suspensions and points on licenses." -
Gartner Says it's a 2-Browser World
prostoalex writes "In its advisory to the IT managers Gartner says that even though the factors that drive the current Firefox growth are not sustainable, IT departments better get used to a two-browser world. "Concerns about security currently favor Mozilla Foundation's Firefox, but the market tide can shift if security breaches result from increased usage of Firefox", says Gartner and ZDNet adds that "Microsoft must deliver an improved version of its browser in Longhorn if it is to "determine the outcome" of the browser war."" -
More Cell Processor Details And First Pictures
slashflood writes "After reading two articles on slashdot about the Cell architecture and another one that criticizes the extensive roundup of the STI patents, I found the first pictures of the Cell core. It seems that at least some predictions were true. Seeing is believing." mtgarden points to this ZDNet article which says that the "first version of the chip will run at speeds faster than 4GHz. Engineers were vague on how much faster, but reports from design partners say 4.6GHz is likely. By comparison, the fastest current Pentium PC processor tops out at 3.8GHz." (More below.)Hack Jandy writes "Anand Shimpi has some details about the upcoming Cell processor (PS3) in his personal blog. According to Anand, "Rambus announced that the new Cell processor uses both Rambus XDR memory and their FlexIO processor bus. Because Rambus designed the interface for both the memory controller(s) and the processor interface, the vast majority of signaling pins are using Rambus interfaces - a total of 90% according to Rambus." Hasn't Rambus been showing up a lot again recently? The fact that Cell uses XDR has been widely speculated, but the fact that it will also use the Rambus bus signalling is something completely new."
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Yahoo's Y!Q Contextual Search Beta
skeptic1 writes "Just days after Microsoft unvieled its new MSN search, Yahoo released a new search tool called Y!Q that allows users to search within the context of the web pages they are currently viewing. It's not the typical textbox input search, and you don't even have to leave the current page you're on to use it. The current release is only the beta version." -
PDA Sales Fall for Third Year in Row
A reader writes "Reports ZDNet on how PDA sales have slipped for a third year in a row now at a five-year low." Anyone have numbers for sales of cell phones? My cell phone has almost every piece of functionality I got from my PDA 3 years ago. Plus a crappy camera. Still no dice roller. -
Sun's Patent and Licensing Practices Examined
RMX writes "Groklaw has an excellent analysis of some Patent Questions About the CDDL. For /.ers who don't like reading a lot, the most important point is that 'it would be possible for developers co-developing Open Solaris to someday find themselves blocked from distributing code by a Microsoft patent infringement claim, while leaving Sun, because of their cross-licensing deal with Microsoft, free to continue to distribute the contributed code.' The article also notes that 'The short answer why [some particular clause] is needed in the CDDL and not the GPL is that Linus Torvalds has not just entered into a cross-licensing arrangement with Microsoft, the relevant details of which are not public'. Makes you wonder what those relevant details are?" And reader rudy_wayne writes "David Berlind's column Will Sun's 1600 patents suck the life out of Linux? talks about Sun's open sourcing of Solaris 10 and the problems that occur due to the fact that so many open source licenses are incompatible with each other. One of his most important points is 'when a large company -- IBM, Sun, or anyone else-- donates code to the open source community with a one-off license, like the Eclipse Public License (IBM) or the CDDL (Sun) it gives those companies a way to donate their code to the open source community, which in turn can enhance it to the benefactor's advantage, without that code leaking into a competitor's product (with a non-reciprocating license) in such a way that it can be used against the benefactor.'" -
Will Mac mini Lead the Charge to Smaller Desktops?
elecngnr writes "Maybe size doesn't matter. ZDNet has a story about how the Mac mini may shift consumers away from the larger tower style desktops to smaller ones. Other computer makers, such as HP, have so far been unsuccessful in marketing small computers to consumers. However, Apple does have a history of leading the charge in paradigm shifts in certain aspects of consumer products (e.g. GUI's, color changes, the iPod, and the list goes on). It is also important to recognize that they have been wrong at times too (e.g. the Cube, the Newton, and the one button mouse). Time will tell which list the Mini will belong to." -
Start Your Own Open Source-Based Telecom
prostoalex writes "George Ou shows how with the help of open-source VOIP server Asterisk you can start your own telecommunications company for under $6000 '...you can build a phone system that can support 72 analog telephones or fax machines, 100 IP hard or soft phones on site or remote, a T1 line to the public telco for 23 simultaneous external PSTN connections, multiple IP-based IAX trunks to multiple remote offices for seamless toll-bypass 4-digit dialing, IVR, and almost unlimited voice mail for everyone - for under $6,000 in a 1U chassis. Such a price point is easily 10 or more times cheaper than a commercial alternative,' writes George." -
Microsoft Eyes PeopleSoft Customers
An anonymous reader writes "According to a couple articles, Microsoft has announced an intent to pick up some of the PeopleSoft customers currently fleeing from possible support contract increases and an uncertain future. What does it mean for the landscape of the ERP market if Microsoft starts being more competitive with its Axapta product?" -
Comcast Begins Rollout of VoIP
rufey writes "Comcast is beginning their rollout of their Internet phone service, according to a press release released today. It seems that the increased competition has gotten the attention of the baby bells, who "have realigned their attention to target cable's success and plan to invest billions of dollars of their own to upgrade their decaying copper network with speedier fiber-optic lines". With Comcast owning the network that the voice calls will traverse (until it gets to POTS, if needed), will Comcast's VoIP quality be better than their competitors such as Vonage, which relies on third party Internet connections to carry their VoIP?" -
Porn Industry Mulls Next Generation-DVD
MBCook writes "ZDNet has an interesting article about how the porn industry might end up deciding the outcome of the HD-DVD/Blu-ray debate. One side likes the higher capacity of Blu-ray, while others like the lower costs of producing HD-DVDs. Manufacturing 11,000 titles a year, the industry would have a sizeable say in the debate." -
Porn Industry Mulls Next Generation-DVD
MBCook writes "ZDNet has an interesting article about how the porn industry might end up deciding the outcome of the HD-DVD/Blu-ray debate. One side likes the higher capacity of Blu-ray, while others like the lower costs of producing HD-DVDs. Manufacturing 11,000 titles a year, the industry would have a sizeable say in the debate." -
Net Worm Uses Google to Spread
troop23 writes "A web worm that identifies potential victims by searching Google is spreading among online bulletin boards using a vulnerable version of the program phpBB, security professionals said on Tuesday. Almost 40,000 sites may have already been infected. In an odd twist if you use Microsoft's Search engine to scan for the phrase 'NeverEverNoSanity'-- part of the defacement text that the Santy worm uses to replace files on infected Web sites--returns nearly 39,000 hits." Reader pmf sent in a few more information links: F-Secure weblog and Bugtraq posting. Update: 12/22 03:34 GMT by T : ZephyrXero links to this news.com article that says Google is now squashing requests generated by the worm. -
Poland Blocks Software Patents in the EU
Several people wrote in with news bits about Poland maneuvering to block software patents in the EU. Patent supporters had planned to sneak in a patent vote at a meeting devoted to agriculture. While this is a temporary reprieve, it's very likely to reappear next year. -
WEP And PPTP Password Crackers Released
Jacco de Leeuw writes "SecurityFocus published an article by Michael Ossmann that discusses the new generation of WEP cracking tools for 802.11 wireless networks. These are much faster as they perform passive statistical analysis. In many cases, a WEP key can be determined in minutes or even seconds. For those who have switched to PPTP for securing their wireless nets: Joshua Wright released a new version of his Cisco LEAP cracker called Asleap which can now also recover weak PPTP passwords. Both LEAP and PPTP employ MS-CHAPv2 authentication." Update: 12/22 00:14 GMT by T : Michael Ossmann wrote to point out his last name has two Ns, rather than one. -
Labels Trying New CD Copy Prevention Systems
bAdministrator writes "What if a CD copy-protection system was developed, which did not compromise sound quality nor cause compatibility problems, and still allowed for your 'rights' to make a limited amount of personal copies (*.DRM)? UK-based company First 4 Internet (F4i) claims to have pulled this off with their 'eXtended Copy Protection' (XCP) system; 'The disc will present itself as a CD-ROM to PCs, a Mac CD-ROM to Mac computers, a VCD to DVD players and CDDA disc to audio CD players. This multifunctional disc format offers full playability and therefore greater flexibility without lowering protection levels.' and 'By using a range of methodologies, including the construction of multiple protection layers, limiting the player accessibility to the provided player software, and encapsulating the red book audio content, XCP® successfully protects the content from unauthorised copying.'" -
Studios Face Off in Next-Gen DVD Format War
WaZiX writes "After yesterday's HD-DVD strike, the Blu-Ray Disc format received support from Disney (and its Buena Vista Home Entertainment unit) as reported by ZDNET. As predicted, the format war has only just begun." -
Linux Server Sales to Reach $9.1 Billion by 2008
dunric writes "ZDNet is reporting that sales of servers using Linux will reach a whopping $9.1 billion by 2008. Annual revenue for Linux servers is expected to grow by a healthy 22.8 percent, compared to just 3.8 percent for the overall server market. Additionally, Linux servers will account for nearly 26% of all server shipments." -
Microsoft Replaces Your Pirated Windows, For Free
th3d0ct0r writes "ZDNet reports that Microsoft is now willing to replace your pirated version of Windows XP. As part of the recently started "Windows Genuine advantage" program, Alex Hilton explains that this incentive aims to bring out customers who bought PC's with Windows XP preinstalled from vendors that pirated the Microsoft OS. Not only do they offer amnesty to anyone coming forth with a pirated version, but also to ship an original version of their product with a valid license to replace the pirated one, each customer being able to get up to 5 such replacements. Hilton says: "Our goal is not to prosecute the individual, our goal is to get to the source". -
More Exploding Cellphones In The News
adityapandey writes "It's happened again. Yahoo News has another story on exploding cellphones. Most of these mishaps are blamed on counterfeit batteries and chargers. Recently, Kyocera recalled about 40,000 cellphones for free replacement, because of batteries overheating and venting superheated gases. Yet, cellphone makers claim that such incidents are too rare to care about. Shouldn't cellphone companies be making people aware of the hazards of usage?" -
What's Next For Mozilla?
ezberry writes "After releasing version 1.0 of Firefox, what's ahead for the Mozilla Foundation and the venerable Firefox browser? With 6% of the market, and a notable exclusion from Google's desktop search software, PC World states that Mozilla may be thinking about adding desktop searching to the browser. Using plugins from third party vendors (and more), desktop searching may become a regular part of firefox. The article also talks about Mozilla improving firefox's popup blocker and getting OEMs to include firefox on their machines." -
How Cheap Can A PC Be?
geoff lane writes "Ballmer wants a $100 computer. OK, can we build a reasonable PC for just $100 and a copy of Linux? The rules are: It's assumed that a monitor, keyboard and mouse are already available. Ethernet connectivity must be provided. All components must already have Linux support. All components must be new and currently available. The result must be electrically safe for the home. Is it possible?" -
Would John Kerry Defang the DMCA?
dave981 writes "Over at ZDNet, Declan McCullagh asks, 'Would John Kerry defang the DMCA?' Kerry's response: 'open to examining' whether to change current law 'to ensure that a person who lawfully obtains or receives a transmission of a digital work may back up a copy of it for archival purposes.' It's not clear, though, how serious Kerry truly is." -
Would John Kerry Defang the DMCA?
dave981 writes "Over at ZDNet, Declan McCullagh asks, 'Would John Kerry defang the DMCA?' Kerry's response: 'open to examining' whether to change current law 'to ensure that a person who lawfully obtains or receives a transmission of a digital work may back up a copy of it for archival purposes.' It's not clear, though, how serious Kerry truly is." -
New Security Bill Proposed
frdmfghtr writes "ZDnet is reporting on a new security bill coming up right before the election in November that is geared towards increasing security in the U.S. "One section anticipates storing the "lifetime travel history of each foreign national or United States citizen" into a database for the convenience of government officials." Senator McCain and HLS secretary Tom Ridge are mentioned specifically in the article: "McCain envisions erecting physical checkpoints, dubbed "screening points," near subways, airports, bus stations, train stations, federal buildings, telephone companies, Internet hubs and any other "critical infrastructure" facility deemed vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Secretary Tom Ridge would appear to be authorized to issue new federal IDs--with biometric identifiers--that Americans could be required to show at checkpoints." Reminds me not-so-vaguely of checkpoints in Soviet Russia where you needed papers to pass." -
Yahoo Shuts Down Their PayPal Competitor
LostCluster writes "MSNBC and ZDnet are both reporting that Yahoo and HSBC have announced a shutdown plan for their PayDirect service which was their rival to PayPal. Since CitiBank abandoned their c2it service last year, PayPal now seems to be a monopoly by default." There are other players in this field, though, like bidpay and worldpay. -
Software Piracy Due to Expensive Hardware, Says Ballmer
frdmfghtr writes "ZDNet is running a story where Steve Ballmer tries to pin the blame of software copyright infringement on expensive hardware: 'One way to stem piracy is to offer consumers in emerging countries a low-cost PC, Ballmer said. "There has to be...a $100 computer to go down-market in some of these countries. We have to engineer (PCs) to be lighter and cheaper," he said.' Does he think that cheaper hardware will make copying software harder to do?" -
Via Will Join The 64-Bit Fray
ancice with news that Via plans to introduce 64-bit chip codenamed 'CN.' "It was revealed at the Fall Processor Forum. The chip 'will have much better performance, particularly when handling video and audio information ... However, it won't depart from Via's emphasis on low cost, small size and modest power consumption.' Features include 'high-speed Front Side Bus, ... Floating Point Unit that can achieve floating-point additions and multiplies using only two clock cycles, an increased cache size, high-speed data movement, and out-of order, superscalar execution that allows the processor to achieve high clock rates while executing multiple, simultaneous instructions for high definition digital entertainment.' The story was reported by ZDNet. The offical release is here. Expected release date is first half of 2006." Update: 10/06 13:10 GMT by T : Also at the Forum, VIA showed off a dual-processor Mini-ITX board, about which more below.An anonymous reader submits "Via gave a sneak preview at the Fall Processor Forum of what is likely the world's first dual-processor mini-ITX mobo. The "four-wheel drive Hyundai" is expected to ship in "early 2005," according to the article at LinuxDevices. Looks like Via is cooking up some higher-end hardware in hopes the security processing features in its CPUs can carry it into higher-margin markets. I don't know, though; I think I'd rather have a PocketPC cluster ... "
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64-Bit Gaming Oversold to Consumers
Ryan Shrout writes "Recently AMD and Atari have both been promoting the game "Shadow Ops: Red Mercury" as the first 64-bit game to hit retail shelves. Even without an operating system ready for it, both companies want us to believe that the 64-bit version of the game adds a large amount of detail and visual quality that the 32-bit version just can't handle. PC Perspective decided to go buy the game and test those claims." -
Gartner Says Linux PCs Just Used To Pirate Windows
LostCluster writes "CNET is reporting results from a Gartner Group report that claims 40% of desktop machines sold with Linux on them are being used to run pirate copies of Windows! The report goes on to say that this stat reaches as high in 80% in 'emerging markets', the same places that the stripped down lite version of Windows is being aimed at. Gartner's making a bold prediction that the number of machines sold as Linux desktops may eclipse the number of machines actually running Linux." -
Open Source Speech Recognition - With Source
Paul Lamere writes " This story on ZD-Net and this recent story on Slashdot describes the recent open sourcing of IBM's voice recognition software. This release, unfortunately, doesn't include any source for the actual speech recognition engine. Olaf Schmidt, a developer on the KDE Accessibility Project , is quoted as saying 'There is no speech-recognition system available for Linux, which is a big gap.' In an attempt to close this gap, we have just released Sphinx-4, a state-of-the-art, speaker-independent, continuous speech recognition system written entirely in the Java programming language. It was created by researchers and engineers from Sun, CMU, MERL, HP, MIT and UCSC. Despite (or because of) being written in the Java programming language, Sphinx-4 performs as well as similar systems written in C. Here are the release notes and some performance data." -
Is That Pirated Software?
underpar writes "According to this ZDNet.com article, Microsoft 'has launched a pilot program in which some visitors to the main Windows download page are being asked to let the software maker check to see whether their copy of the operating system is licensed.' The check is not required, but after the desired 20,000 users go through the program they might change their tune." -
AOL Will Not Support Sender-ID
DominoTree writes "America Online said Thursday that it will not support the Microsoft-backed antispam technology called Sender-ID. The online giant cited 'lackluster' industry support and compatibility issues with the anti-spam technology SPF that AOL supports." -
Microsoft Lists SP2 Incompatibilities
thejuggler writes "ZDNET has a story about how the new XP SP2 causes conflicts with over 50 applications and causes problems with others including some of Microsoft's own products. The 'glitch' as they are calling it seems to be that the Windows firewall system is turned on by default and blocks unsolicited connections to your computer. You have to unblock certain ports as your applications require to make the apps work again. They are calling this a glitch, but I thought we wanted everything blocked by default so we would have to choose what was unblocked?" The BBC has a story as well. -
PCs Use More Sick Days Than People
lunarscape writes "ZDNet is running an article about the 'absentee' rate of PCs in various UK workplaces. According to the article, while the average employee was out sick seven days a year, the average PC was inoperable due to a virus nine days a year. The article also discusses junk e-mail's impact on productivity, with one business reporting that 99.84 percent of all incoming mail is spam." -
Hotmail, Others Follow Gmail's Storage Boost
BobPaul writes "Following behind Yahoo Mail's recent upgrade to 100MB of free storage, and trailing behind GMail's 1GB (last mentioned here), ZDNet reports that Hotmail will soon boost email storage as well. 'The upgrade will increase Hotmail's free e-mail storage limits from 2 megabytes to 250MB and its paid e-mail service, which costs $19.95 a year, from 10MB to 2 gigabytes. The changes will begin in early July.' Another interesting tidbit from the article: 'Ask Jeeves also plans to grant its e-mail subscribers more storage room... According to an e-mail sent to iWon users, Ask Jeeves plans to give each of the sites' e-mail subscribers 125MB of free storage.'" -
AOL to Release Netscape 7.2 Based on Mozilla 1.7
securitas writes "ZDNet's Evan Hansen reports that AOL will release Netscape Navigator 7.2 based on Mozilla 1.7 code this summer. The update comes a year after version 7.1 and after Microsoft stopped standalone development in Internet Explorer. eWEEK's Matt Hicks offers analysis of the new Netscape release, citing studies that say while Microsoft has a 93.9% browser market share and 87% of business users use IE, 25% still use Netscape and 11% use Opera -- the math works because people use multiple browsers. Hicks asks the question 'Is the Netscape Browser Being Reborn or Just Stabilized?' Hicks interviews several people in the know including a former Netscape engineer, an industry analyst, and Opera Software CEO Jon von Tetzchner." -
Gmail Users Get A Storage Boost [updated]
Faies writes "As reported by ZDNet: Not to be outdone by Lycos, Google just upped its 1,000 megabyte accounts to 1,000,000 MB. I just recently checked my inbox, and the number at the bottom confirms this. "You are currently using 12 MB (0%) of your 1000000 MB." That's more than my hard drive...and plus, Google clearly wants to hold the title of being best, so who knows what will happen if someone else tries to compete with a terabyte." Now how much would you pay? Update: 05/19 13:34 GMT by T : Several comments to this thread indicate that the listed mailbox size limit has returned to the previous 1GB level, so this apparent change may be nothing more than the result of a misplaced decimal point. -
Six Barriers to Open Source Adoption
securitas writes "ZDNet/CNet's Dan Farber describes the six barriers to enterprise open source software adoption. Briefly, the reasons are 1) Lack of formal support, 2) Speed of change (not 'velocity'), 3) Lack of roadmap, 4) Functional gaps, 5) Licensing caveats and 6) ISV endorsements. The article makes an interesting counterpoint to Marc Andreessen's 12 reasons for open source adoption." -
ZDNet Examines SCO Indemnity Options
Ursus Maximus writes "David Berlind of ZD NET has posted a major opinion/research piece. What do you all think? I don't like the story at all, but he does seem to have made more of an effort to try to find reasons to back up SCO's claims than any of their other supporters have." -
DNSSEC: Good Enough?
Phil Windley writes "DNS Security Extension, or DNSSEC, is a set of extensions to DNS, which provide end-to-end authenticity and integrity. Paul Mockapetris, the inventor of DNS believes DNSSEC is the answer to many of the identity problems on the Internet. He wants the IETF to get off the dime and approve the DNSSEC spec. A recent article in ZDNet TechUpdate interviews Mockapertis on DNSSEC (summary)." -
SCO Attorney Declares GPL Invalid
chrullrich writes "According to heise (German, fishbait), SCO's chief counsel Mark Heise (unrelated) of Boies, Schiller and Flexner has declared that the GPL violates the US copyright law and is thus null and void. SCO's legal position is actually a little too crazy to believe: The GPL allows unlimited copies, the copyright law allows one. Therefore, the GPL is invalid. Apparently, they try to argue that the copyright law, in giving consumers the right to make one backup of their software without any permission from the copyright holder, outlaws any contractual agreement that allows users to make more than one copy." There's an Inquirer article in English. Apparently SCO is now using the Chewbacca Defense. Other SCO news: SCO reports a profit, examining SCO's contributions to Linux, an attorney summarizes the case. -
OSI Announces Open Source Awards
JohnGrahamCumming writes "There's a story running on ZDNet about how OSI is going to be giving Open Source Awards with cash prizes of up to $10,000. The idea is to create the "Nobel Prizes" of Open Source. Announcement was made yesterday as OSCON with some big names backing the awards (e.g. Sun, OSAF and (interestingly) a major venture capital firm USVP)." -
OSI Announces Open Source Awards
JohnGrahamCumming writes "There's a story running on ZDNet about how OSI is going to be giving Open Source Awards with cash prizes of up to $10,000. The idea is to create the "Nobel Prizes" of Open Source. Announcement was made yesterday as OSCON with some big names backing the awards (e.g. Sun, OSAF and (interestingly) a major venture capital firm USVP)." -
Writing Viruses for Fun and Profit
JMPrice writes "There's a short article over at zdnet that explores a future synergy between viruses and spam, i.e. international crackdown on spam and open relays makes spammers opt to use infected computers instead as relays, and speculates a relationship between the virus writers and spammers." -
RMS Cuts Through Some SCO FUD
sckienle writes "ZD-Net has a commentary by Richard Stallman about the SCO case against IBM, kind of. It does provide some history on what the GNU organization did to protect itself from such lawsuits. Favorite quote: 'Less evident is the harm it does by inciting simplistic thinking: [Intellectual Property] lumps together diverse laws--copyright law, patent law, trademark law and others--which really have little in common.'"