14th February 2002 Archive

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Police arrest five over mobile phone blag

9,649 Samsung A300 phones recovered

Five men were arrested yesterday after the recovery of thousands of phones taken during one of Britain's biggest ever mobile phone theft. Officers arrested five suspects after a raid last night on an address in West London. They recovered 9,649 Samsung A300 phones from the premises and a nearby parked van. The mobiles are …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 07:26
NAI sells firewall business

Secure Computing picks up Gauntlet

Secure Computing has acquired the Gauntlet firewall and VPN business from Network Associates (NAI) for an undisclosed amount. Network Associates customers will be "transitioned" to Secure Computing, developers of the Sidewinder Firewall and VPN Gateway, under the deal which sees the transfer of NAI's technology, along with …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 07:32
Apple pushes Mobile QuickTime bundle, delays release of 6.0

Attacks MPEG 4 terms

Apple Computer Inc has announced plans to bundle up a package of software and services, to sell packages of streaming media software and systems to wireless operators. The company has formed a partnership with mobile handset and systems vendor LM Ericsson Telefon AB and server vendor Sun Microsystems Inc. Apple will supply …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 08:02
Visual Studio.NET to expand economy – Billg

Playing catch-up?

Microsoft Corp launched the long-awaited Visual Studio.NET and .NET framework yesterday, pitching the IDE as its most important product to-date for developers and as specifically designed for an economy founded on web services, Gavin Clarke writes. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft told delegates at its VSLive! …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 08:02
HP overshoots on Q1

But will it boost merger prospects?

Does the fact that Hewlett Packard Co did a little better than expected in its first fiscal quarter mean that the $25bn merger with rival Compaq Computer Corp is a good idea, as chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina clearly believes, Tim Prickett Morgan writes Or does it mean that, as founder's son Walter Hewlett believes, the HP …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 08:03
Lover's Guide at a PC near you

Something saucy for Valentine's Day

Here's something saucy for Valentine's Day - a PPV streaming version of The Lover's Guide, the famously -ahem - educational video series. The latest sex education-packed edition is called "The Secrets of Sensational Sex" and you can see it at www.loversguide.com - but only if you are based in the UK. There are eight separate …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 08:27
MSN Messenger worm entices the unwary

Draws victims to malicious Web site

A relatively benign but effective Internet worm attacked users of Microsoft's MSN Messenger service Wednesday by exploiting a bug in Internet Explorer that was reported last year, but was only recently patched by Microsoft. Dubbed the 'Cool Worm' by an early discoverer, the worm arrives as an MSN instant message that reads, " …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 09:09
Comcast promises not to track subscribers

Except when they feel like it

A little brouhaha started last week with a post to the Vuln-Dev mailing list, in which a contributor called J Edgar Hoover observed that Comcast's cable Internet service was using an Inktomi traffic server capable of recording the individual comings and goings of its subscribers. Several days later the Associated Press' Ted …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 10:22
Enjoy our Valentine's Day computer books love-in

Romantic opportunity Buy books and win chocolate

It's that time of year when the daffodils are bursting forth from the cruel earth, the sap is rising, and a young man's thoughts turn to romance. For today is Valentine's Day - a time to celebrate matters of the heart. It's also, by an amazing co-incidence, an ideal moment to stock up on computer reference books, courtesy of IT …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 11:24
BSD ‘3 times as popular as desktop Linux’ – Apple

BSDCon Thanks to Mac OS X of course

BSD is now three times as popular on the desktop as Linux, Apple's Ernest Prabhakar told attendees at the annual USENIX BSD Conference here yesterday. That's thanks to Mac OS X, of course, which is a BSD-based Unix (although much of this remains hidden). Prabhakar was summing up Darwin developments for a BSD State of the …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 11:32
Anders Heljsberg on what's next for C#

Pointers not considered harmful

According to ancient scriptures, Anders Heljsberg "journeyed to the wilderness, and wept and wailed and cried out unto the Lord, saying: 'Shall I spend the rest of my days tinkering with a Pascal compiler I wrote 15 years ago? Couldn't I have a go at something else?'" And he did have a go at something else, leading the design …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 11:39
Cellphones build IM bridges

Y'VE GOT TXT

The "Wireless Village" initiative started by the three dominant mobile phone companies Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson yesterday showed off the IMPS initiative which ought to bridge the gap between SMS text messaging and PC-based IM. IMPS, or Instant Messaging and Presence Services, is touted as an open industry specification. It …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 11:56
Former Corel CEO back in frame as regulators toss deal

Lack of guilt replaced by deep contrition...

Former Corel CEO Michael Cowpland is not not guilty of insider trading after all. Earlier this week he appeared to have escaped the slammer via a strange deal whereby his personal holding company peaded guilty and paid the fine, but Cowpland himself escaped, sort of. But this was part of a negotiated settlement which has now …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 12:35
Keygen routine producing valid WinXP product keys?

Sounds like bad news for Microsoft's WPA...

A cracking system for Windows Product Activation publicised this week may present Microsoft's anti-piracy system with its most serious problem yet. It takes the form of a key generator which appears to produce valid activation keys for Microsoft products, and if this really is the case, it is difficult to see how Microsoft can …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 13:20
Compaq seizes bootleg components

With a little help from US marshals

US marshals raided the premises of a Bow, New Hampshire computer parts wholesaler, and found a thriving counterfeiting operation. They seized large quantities of counterfeit Compaq memory parts and hard drives from Hardware 4 Less, as well as well as "counterfeit Compaq labels, packing materials, warranty booklets, and software …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 14:02
Cisco protects against IP telephony security risks

Refresh PIX

Cisco is introducing a major refresh of its security product portfolio, adding new features to safeguard IP telephony. The new PIX 506E and 515E firewall platforms increase traffic throughput by a factor of two and a half, according to Cisco's internal tests. Select PIX 515E firewall models now come with an integrated hardware- …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 14:07
Senators' stock options move could cost MS billions

IT giants could have to pay some tax, shock horror

Four US senators are proposing legislation that would stop companies using stock options to window-dress their earnings statements. The proposed Ending Double Standards for Stock Options Act would require companies to treat employee stock options as an expense for book-keeping purposes if they want to claim them as an expense …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 15:37
Nildram chips away at ADSL prices

Consumer gig

Nildram, the Aylesbury ISP, has cut ADSL connection fees to £29 per month plus VAT, helpfully pointing out that this is a saving of £140 a year over the previous tariff. Installation still costs £50 and there's a 12-month contract period for the service which is based upon the Home500 Wires Only ADSL service. The company says …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 15:39
Weird escort/temp service ‘cybersquats’ UK estate agents

Famous Sexetaries

Here's a blast from the past: a cybersquatter is leveraging off the names of other companies to generate online traffic for its own service. At least that's what we think temptations@work is trying to do. Temptations@work is a "brand new form of global staffing agency... a mix of traditional Secretarial & I.T temping agency …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 16:12
Cisco and Intel split on high speed wireless futures

To be or not to 802.11g

Cisco and Intel are at odds over which emerging standard for high speed wireless LANs offers the best migration path for users. At a briefing in London yesterday, Cisco came out heavily in favour of 802.11g; this standard is backwards-compatible with existing 802.11b-based networking kit, and works in the existing 2.4GHz …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 16:13
Slashdot editor proposes on front page

Valentine's Day special

Here's a romantic story for Valentine's Day and there's an IT angle (sort of). Commander Taco, the legendary founder of Slashdot, the town hall of the opensource community, proposed to his girlfriend today - by way of a posting on the front page. Here it is in full. Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday February 14, @09:25AM from …

Business 14 Feb 2002, 16:22