27th June 2002 Archive

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Bush, SEC gang up on WorldCom

Corporate America closes ranks

The White House and the SEC moved against WorldCom Inc yesterday, after the carrier revealed late Tuesday that it had improperly booked $3.8bn over the last five fiscal quarters. But the immediate judgment from analysts was that debt-laden WorldCom could well be headed for bankruptcy. In the meantime, the rest of corporate …

Music and Media 27 Jun 2002, 06:19
KPNQwest sale sought urgently

40+ bids

Liquidators of bankrupt carrier KPNQwest NV are now mulling over 40 bids for all or part of the 25,000 km network under pressure to come up with a quick decision. AT&T Corp remains favorite to buy up the network and while a team from the company has investigated details of its asserts it has stayed silent over its plans. …

Music and Media 27 Jun 2002, 06:19
Alcatel plans 10,000 job cuts

Outlook worsens, gloom deepens

Alcatel has given up hope of making a profit this year and the telecoms equipment vendor plans to cut its workforce by another 10,000 as it sees no sign of an upturn in spending by the world's carriers. In April, the Paris, France-based company was far more confident than its US competitors and said it had hit the bottom …

Music and Media 27 Jun 2002, 06:20
FBI raid sparks Akamai v. Speedera court battle

Why can't we all be friends?

Akamai Technologies Inc and Speedera Networks Inc took their increasingly bitter rivalry to court in San Francisco yesterday, with two lawsuits being filed after it emerged the FBI is investigating the alleged "hacking" of Akamai's confidential data by Speedera's CTO, Richard Day, Kevin Murphy Speedera confirmed yesterday …

Music and Media 27 Jun 2002, 06:20
Sun choreographs Web Service interface dance

Will you, won't you

Sun Microsystems Inc has rallied a handful of ISVs to the newest web services specification, potentially aggravating partisan splits within the industry. Palo Alto, California-based Sun is backing the Web Service Choreography Interface (WSCI), to describe and manage flow of elements inside a web service. Backing WSCI are …

e-Business 27 Jun 2002, 06:23
Nokia touts firewall certification

Handpicked partners

Nokia Internet Communications Inc, the Nokia Corp internet appliance subsidiary, will today take the wraps off an interoperability certification program for security appliances it has been quietly operating for the last seven months, and will reveal the first batch of "hand-picked" partners. The aim of the program is to …

Security 27 Jun 2002, 06:24
UK Gov inches towards pooled broadband spending

Like watching grass grow

The UK Government is beginning the task of using its massive public sector spending power to help boost demand for broadband in areas currently not served by affordable high speed Net access. Regional broadband advisors will try to ensure that public sector procurement of broadband - from schools, local authorities, and health …

Telecoms 27 Jun 2002, 10:25
Lesbian sperm bank site proves popular

8,000 people sign up

Thousands of men have signed up to a Web site to help lesbians start a family. Mannotincluded.com went live on Monday. Since then 5,000 sperm donors have registered with the site along with 3,000 lesbian couples who want children. Mannotincluded.com matches lesbian couples with potential sperm donors and is due to open up for …

Music and Media 27 Jun 2002, 12:46
Xbox hackers take legal advice followed by an early bath

Mods v. Rockers

One of the groups working on a mod chip for the Xbox has pulled the plug on its project following legal consultations. The group, Enigmah-X, had hoped to create the second Xbox chip to go into circulation, following the release of the first working chip, the Xtender, for the system in May. However, earlier this week their site …

Personal 27 Jun 2002, 13:18
UK suffers Net outage

Blip

The UK suffered an Internet outage this afternoon after a switch at the London Internet Exchange (LINX) went tits up. The incident occurred at around 2.35 this afternoon at LINX's Telecity centre at Millharbour, in London's Docklands. Those hit by the problem would have had difficulty with their email and accessing the Web. …

Music and Media 27 Jun 2002, 17:43
Glitch hits Orange GPRS service

'Minor technical fault'

Orange today fixed a "minor technical fault" which left a "small number" of its GPRS users in north London and surrounding areas without service over the last two days. The glitch came to light after a Reg reader contacted us about problems he has had connecting via the service since Tuesday. Customer service reps at Orange …

Mobile 27 Jun 2002, 18:24
IBM says Intel eServers trounce Dell, challenge Sun

Pot-shots at dawn

IBM has announced a set of benchmarks for its Intel servers which it says show big performance gains in Web applications over competitive systems, from Dell and Sun Microsystems. The eServer x440 and x255 hold first and second places, respectively, in TPC-W results for a 10,000-item database, outperforming Dell systems by as …

Hardware 27 Jun 2002, 18:33
Fibernet suspends German/French networks

KPNQwest fallout

Fibernet - the high-speed data communications company - has suspended its German and French national networks following the collapse of KPNQwest. KPNQwest's fibre network forms more than 80 per cent of Fibernet's network infrastructure in Europe, but with the collapse of the pan-European company, Fibernet has had to rethink its …

Music and Media 27 Jun 2002, 18:34
BT woos SMEs with broadband

Scary

BT is continuing its drive to tempt businesses to sign up to broadband with three measures which, it says, will help provide "hassle-free" technology for small and medium businesses (SMEs) in the UK. Following on from the ACT NOW scheme in Cornwall, in which exchanges in areas deemed commercially unviable were upgraded to …

Telecoms 27 Jun 2002, 18:36
MS patches Media Player secure music vulnerability

Oops...

Microsoft has issued a cumulative patch for Windows Media Player designed to patch three vulnerabilities, the most serious of which might permit an attacker to run arbitrary code on a victim's PC. An advisory by Microsoft says that the most serious of the three problems is an information disclosure vulnerability, which it rates …

Security 27 Jun 2002, 18:39