News for the Week Ending Feb 1, 2003

• McAfee / NAI Can't "Ban" Benchmarks
• Fantastic Video Card / CPU Benchmark
• MS Launches Microsoft CRM
• Verizon Must Reveal Internet Song Swapper Identity
• Security Flaw Exposes 35 Million AOL Accounts
• Identify Theft Doubled Last Year
• MS Finally Declares Annual Dividend
• Is the RIAA Infecting MP3's So They Can Audit "Swapping"?
• Apple's Linux, Unix pitch--X11
• Streaming Video of New & Concept Cars from Detroit Auto Show

Feedroom.com |  Cracking Down On File Swappers

See the text write up on the same story in this weeks news here and here to see what some claim RIAA is doing to monitor swapping.  Click the picture for the simple video version of this complex issue.
 

ZDNet.com | McAfee / NAI Can't "Ban" Benchmarks
By Lisa M. Bowman

In a victory for free-speech advocates and product reviewers, a New York state judge has ruled that Network Associates can't prevent people from talking about its products.

...The New York attorney general's office began investigating the case after Network World Fusion magazine published an unfavorable review of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company's "Gauntlet" firewall software in 1999. According to the ruling, Network Associates demanded a retraction and accused the magazine of violating its licensing agreement. At the time, the agreement stated that people could not review or test Network Associates products without prior approval from the company.

...The attorney general's office filed suit last year, claiming the licensing agreement's language may cause people to believe that they're breaking the law by reviewing the product without consent.

"Such clauses censoring speech and criticism chill not only consumers' speech, but also prevent academics, consumer advocates and technology experts alike from openly and freely discussing software products," New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said in a statement. "Restrictions like these threaten to hinder the spirit of innovation and critical appraisal the public needs to keep software effective, efficient and safe."

...End-user license agreements have become a hot-button issue in the tech industry as more and more companies try to forge increasingly restrictive contracts. Some companies have tried to ban class-action lawsuits, requests for damages or reverse engineering of their products...

TomsHardware.com | Fantastic Video Card / CPU Benchmark

There is much more detail (as always) at the fabulous TomsHardware.com page but the following graphic provides a very nice summary:

Reuters.com | MS Launches Microsoft CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

From my review of the pre-release product about a year ago there are a number of items that this story misses.  To run MSCRM you need to have Exchange, Outlook, Windows 2000 or XP and I believe SQL!  Add up all those licence costs and you have one big pile of cash going to Redmond.  The investor chill effect based on only the announcement of the product last year, caused all CRM companies (Goldmine, Maximizer, Siebel...) stock to dive and new releases to be delayed.

Microsoft launched its first foray into software to help companies manage customer accounts on Tuesday, hoping to undercut more established rivals as it targets price sensitive small businesses.

...Microsoft CRM, which will be sold through resellers, will cost US$395 per user plus US$995 for the server for a standard version, and US$1,295 per-user plus US$1,990 for the server for a more advanced version, Microsoft said....

...The integration with Outlook, Microsoft's contacts, e-mail and scheduling program will give Microsoft CRM an edge since it will let current Microsoft software users adopt it without extensive training, said David Thacher, general manager of CRM at Microsoft Business Solutions, the division that makes software for small businesses.

...Microsoft CRM is part of a larger push by Microsoft to create software and services for small companies. In the last two years, Microsoft spent $2.4 billion acquiring small business software makers Great Plains and Navision to shore up its business solutions division.

Siebel Systems Inc., a leader in CRM software for large companies, has been targeting smaller enterprises to help boost flagging growth.

Although Siebel is Microsoft's partner, it is expected to go head-to-head with the Redmond, Washington-based software giant in the CRM market for companies with up to 500 users and $800 million in revenue.

Shares in Siebel dropped nearly 8 percent in one day last month after an analyst who tested Microsoft CRM said that Microsoft's software posed a competitive threat to Siebel.

Reuters.com |  Verizon Must Reveal Internet Song Swapper Identity
By Andy Sullivan
See the simplified video version of this story by clicking here.

Recording companies won a victory in their fight against online piracy on Tuesday when a U.S. court ordered Verizon Communications to turn over the name of a customer suspected of downloading more than 600 songs in one day over the Internet.

...Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Internet providers have voluntarily shut down Web sites that contain infringing material, but they have balked at requests to disconnect users who trade songs with each other directly over peer-to-peer networks.

Recording-industry investigators, using automated software, have been able to track down the numerical Internet addresses of file traders, but have not been able to match those addresses with individual names.

Investigators asked Verizon last summer for the name of one customer believed to have downloaded more than 600 songs in one day, but Verizon said they would have to jump through a few more legal hoops because the alleged infringer did not store the songs on Verizon servers but only used its wires to transfer the material.

(From another article I found on the web at the New York Times):  Sara Deutch, VP and associage general counsel for Verison (stated) "It opens the door for anyone who makes a mere allegation of copywrite infringement to gain complete access to private subscriber information without the due process protections afforded by the courts."

Over the past several months the RIAA has sent out thousands of letters to schools and businesses asking them to monitor their networks for peer-to-peer use and implying that they could be held liable for infringing activity.

The U.S. Naval Academy seized the computers of 100 students in November and is investigating them for possible court martial after it determined they downloaded copyrighted material.

The industry has also accused Internet providers of profiting from illegal downloading. On Saturday, RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen suggested that Internet providers should pay a fee to offset losses from file trading.

The RIAA represents the five largest recording companies: AOL Time Warner Warner Music; Sony Corp. Sony Music; Bertelsmann BMG; Vivendi Universal Universal Music Group; and EMI Group Plc.

BetaNews.com | Security Flaw Exposes 35 Million AOL Accounts
By Nate Mook and Craig Newell

The accounts of millions of AOL subscribers were jeopardized this week due to a serious flaw in the company's Web-based mail system, BetaNews has learned.

The vulnerability stems from an error in one of AOL's international e-mail authentication systems, which granted users access without correctly verifying passwords. By simply entering an account name, an AOL user had the ability to read any other user's e-mail and all personal data contained therein.

AssociatedPress | Identify Theft Doubled Last Year

The government received twice as many complaints about identity theft last year over 2001, with victims reporting hijacked credit cards, drained bank accounts and tarnished reputations

..."What we're seeing increasingly is identity theft because some insider steals information and sells it," Beales said at a news conference...  Sen. Charles Schumer, said he has asked the FTC to issue and enforce security guidelines for businesses that collect sensitive financial information. The guidelines would include employee background checks and restricting access to customer information.

...The District of Columbia had the highest rate of identity theft in 2002 with 123 victims for every 100,000 people. California and Arizona followed with 91 and 88 victims per 100,000 people, respectively.

Commodore.ca | MS Finally Declares Annual Dividend

Shareholders have been screaming about MS' US$40.5 BILLION dollar cash on hand and insisting that the company declare a dividend.  Well this week, they did: "Microsoft Corp. today announced that its Board of Directors declared an annual dividend and approved a two-for-one split on Microsoft common stock. The annual dividend of $0.16 per share pre-split ($0.08 post-split) is payable March 7, 2003, to shareholders of record at the close of business on Feb. 21, 2003. As a result of the stock split, shareholders will receive one additional common share for every share held on the record date of Jan. 27, 2003."

TheRegister.co.uk | Is the RIAA Infecting MP3's So They Can Audit "Swapping"?
By Andrew Orlowski - Thanx to Rollando for this link
See a related video story by clicking here.

The RIAA is preparing to infect MP3 files in order to audit and eventually disable file swapping, according to a startling claim by hacker group Gobbles. In a posting to the Bugtraq mailing list, Gobbles himself claims to have offered his code to the RIAA, creating a monitoring "hydra".

...Gobbles claims that when a peer to peer host is infected, it catalogs media and sends the information "back to the RIAA headquarters (through specifically crafter requests over the p2p networks) where it is added to their records", and also propagates the exploit to other nodes.

"Our software worked better than even we hoped, and current reports indicate that nearly 95% of all p2p-participating hosts are now infected with the software that we developed for the RIAA."  The "hydra" is uncorroborated.

..."They're real, and they're damn good. They have made what appeared to be extremely exaggerated claims in the past, and when mocked, they have demonstrated that they are serious," one security expert familiar with their work, who declined to be named, told The Register.

...An exploit of this nature is of dubious legality, right now, but language in Howard Berman's "P2P Piracy Prevention" bill last year legitimizing such exploits was backed by RIAA chief Hilary Rosen:

The Berman bill, ensured a copyright owner would not be liable for "disabling, interfering with, blocking, diverting, or otherwise impairing the unauthorized distribution, display, performance, or reproduction of his or her copyrighted work on a publicly accessible peer-to-peer file trading network, if such impairment does not, without authorization, alter, delete, or otherwise impair the integrity of any computer file or data residing on the computer of a file trader." Berman is expected to re-introduce the bill in this Congressional session...

ZDNet.com | Apple's Linux, Unix pitch--X11

Apple Computer has quietly extended an overture to the Unix community, with the release of software that would make it easier for Unix applications to run on the Mac operating system.

During Macworld Expo earlier this month, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company posted a beta, or test, version of the X Windows system, or X11, for its Unix-based operating system, Mac OS X. The X11 software provides a standard graphical and windowing environment on Unix and Linux, and makes it possible to run software developed for one version of Unix on another version. There are about 30 million X11 users worldwide, according to industry estimates.

More important, X11 support could finally move Apple closer to a long-elusive goal: attracting more mainstream business users to the Mac. While Apple remains wildly popular among artists, film editors and the like, the company needs to expand its appeal in order to grow revenue. In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Apple forecast flat revenue for the immediate future. And some market analysts see the company's products losing ground, despite new Mac hardware and digital devices.

...X11 provides a windowing environment that lets Unix programs run on Mac OS X essentially the same way they do on their native operating systems. The tool also makes the process of developing a native OS X application faster, while allowing programs to run on a Mac in the meantime. Also, X11 running on OS X gives Unix users a portable option they might not have with Unix.

Apple believes X11 is the key to bringing Unix applications to Mac OS X. "We look at X11 as a bridge, for people that have been in that (other) world and want to come to ours and couldn't quite get there or didn't have the opportunity or bandwidth to do so," said Richard Kerris, Apple's director of developer relations. The company will make the software available free of charge when it debuts later this year.

Gartner analyst Michael Silver said there are a number of reasons why a traditional Unix user might consider a move to Mac OS X. A prominent one among them, he said, is "definitely lower cost."

On hardware costs alone, Apple can make a case that switching to its systems from Unix makes sense. A Sun Blade 2000 workstation with 1GHz UltraSparc III processor, 2GB of RAM and a 73GB hard drive sells for $15,995. In comparison, a Power Mac G4 with dual 1.25GHz processors, 2GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive sells for $4,599. The Mac also offers DVD recording and wireless networking, among other features not typically available with Unix or Linux workstations.

Unix implementations don't easily run Microsoft Office--the de facto business standard. That means many people must maintain both a Unix workstation and a PC on their desks, which represents a support headache and added cost for IS departments, analysts said. A move from Unix to Mac OS X could allow companies to consolidate systems, said Silver.

"For most folks, the ability to run Microsoft Office is a real big (incentive)," he said. Another issue is portability--Sun does not offer Unix portables. "There are lots of Apple portables to choose from, and they run Mac OS, which (with X11) would run Unix applications," said Silver...

MSN.com | Streaming Video of New & Concept Cars from Detroit Auto Show

Dozens of videos covering every manufacturer on the planet... from the "Army Smart Truck 2" to the "Lamborghini Open Top" to the "Volkswagen Toureg".  Click HERE .