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Monday, May 31, 2004
 
  Spam messages on the increase
Junk mail now accounts for nearly 70% of e-mails worldwide, according to filtering firm MessageLabs. Despite efforts in the US to cut down on the sending of unsolicited messages, new laws seem to be having the opposite effect. Spammers are simply adapting rather than shutting up shop. "The law goes part way to legitimise spam rather than outlaw it," said Natasha Staley, information security analyst at MessageLabs.

Court threat to UK song-swappers
The UK's record industry has issued illegal music downloaders with a warning that they must stop pirating music or face action in the courts. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has said 7.4 million people in the UK are swapping songs online illegally. "It is causing real financial damage to everyone involved in the business," said BPI chairman Peter Jamieson.

Legal song downloads rise tenfold
The number of songs sold via Europe's biggest music download sites has increased tenfold over the past year. More than a million downloads have been sold via sites such as Freeserve, MSN and Mycokemusic from January-March - 10 times up on the same period in 2003. OD2, the firm that provides the downloads, said OutKast's Hey Ya! was the most popular song in the UK.

Will Napster kill High Street record stores?
Online music service Napster launched this week in the UK, predicting the demise of the High Street record shop within 10 years. Can the record shop survive in the digital age? Record stores have been an integral part of popular culture since the days of the first rock and roll singles in the 1950s.

E-mail controls loom in Zimbabwe
The Zimbabwean government has proposed obliging its internet service providers to divulge details of e-mails deemed offensive or dangerous. Zispa, the local ISP association, has asked the government to clarify its proposed addendum to providers' franchise contracts.

Messaging programs bring instant risk
Instant messaging is gaining popularity with workers trying to get around the restrictions placed on what they can do with e-mail. A survey by filtering firm Surf Control Survey shows that workers are turning to instant messaging to do the things that company policies stop them doing with e-mail. Currently few firms subject instant messaging programs to the same scrutiny that e-mail receives to stop spam, viruses or abuse by employees.

Instant messaging grows up
Instant messaging is evolving beyond just text, reports BBC ClickOnline North America technology correspondant. In 1996 a little known Israeli company wrote a piece of software that quickly became one of the most downloaded programs on the web and revolutionised global communications. ondent Ian Hardy. It enabled any two people anywhere to type messages to each other in real time.

China's pioneering tech giants
In a series of special reports for BBC World Service, Global Business reports on a second industrial revolution and the upheavals which are changing not only China but the whole world. A growing number of Chinese migrants, who have become successful in the hi-tech world of places like Silicon Valley in the US, are returning home to take advantage of China's booming technology market.

Google faces Gmail advert limits
US politicians have taken the first steps towards imposing restrictions on Google's Gmail service. Citing privacy worries, Californian senators have approved a bill that limits Google's plans to scan messages and include ads based on what it finds. Google said it was working with law-makers on a way to both answer privacy concerns and run a viable service.

Big Nigeria phone deal called off
South African mobile phone giant has pulled out of a $200m deal with Econet Wireless Nigeria (EWN). In a statement Vodacom said the pair had "mutually agreed to terminate their current management agreement on an amicable basis". Vodacom also said its deputy chief executive, Mthobi Tyamzashe, had been sacked amid a management shake-up following the Nigeria decision.

Domain name threat to South African business
Law firm Bowman Gilfillan John and Kernick today warned that a United Kingdom based company, Solus Online, has recently been approaching South African companies under the pretext that their company names and or trade marks are in the process of being registered by third parties as either a dotcom and/or dot net Internet domain.

Encrypted File Sharing: P2P Fights Back
Masking the user's IP address is the Holy Grail of file-sharing networks. With a hidden IP address, Web surfers can visit Web sites, post messages and send e-mail without leaving a traditional trail that can link the communication with a particular Internet connection to a computer's physical location.


Yahoo Adds Anti-Spyware to Toolbar
Anti-Spy allows users to scan a PC and then disable, remove or keep any discovered spyware. If a user chooses to delete suspect software but later has a change of heart, he or she can restore most programs. Yahoo has announced it will add a feature to its Web browser toolbar that allows users to easily remove spyware programs from their computers.


Six Questions To Spur Web Success
A site name in one country can mean something entirely different when it circumnavigates the globe. How do you tackle such language issues? The answer is to acquire skills and a deeper understanding of global communications. Even if you're a regional player, your sites are still visible and exposed to the entire world.


MyWireless arrives in Western Cape
[Cape Town | ITWeb, 28 May 2004] - Broadband network group Sentech yesterday launched its MyWireless Internet connectivity service in the Western Cape and is slowly coming to grips with the province's environmentally conscious citizens.
The Western Cape is the last of the major urban areas to receive the service after it was introduced in Gauteng and the Durban areas. The main problem with the province's roll out was the environmental impact studies that had to be carried out before a base station could be installed.

Taiwanese engineer arrested for creating virus
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - A Taiwanese computer engineer was arrested on charges he had designed a virus-like Trojan horse that Chinese hackers found and used to attack the island's business and government systems, police said Thursday.
Wang Ping-an, 30, designed "Peep," which earlier this year allowed the attackers to steal information and retain control of infected computer systems, police said.


'Buffalo Spammer' Sentenced to 3-1/2 to 7 Years
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A New York state man who sent out millions of "spam" e-mails was sentenced to 3-1/2 to seven years in prison, the state attorney general's office said on Thursday. Howard Carmack, known as the "Buffalo Spammer," received the maximum sentence for 14 counts of identity theft and forgery, a spokesman for New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said.


Friday, May 28, 2004
 
  Computers, Not Teachers, Grade Essay Tests in Indiana
With the increasing number of mandates to test student writing, there's a certain inevitability to computerized essay grading, said Stan Jones, the Indiana commissioner of higher education. Indiana's computerized essay scoring, he said, will reduce by half the cost of administering a pencil-and-paper test and will free teachers from distributing, collecting and, above all, grading thousands of test booklets.


Battening Down the E-Mail Hatches
According to a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) survey, one in eight respondents were victims of identity theft in the past five years. That ratio increased alarmingly in recent months, causing the Department of Justice to make reducing this crime a priority this year. Viruses delivered by e-mail, phishing attacks and spam are becoming as much a part of using computers as accidents, tolls and bumper-to-bumper delays on the freeway are in commuting to work each day. Both situations cause frustration, steal productivity and cost money.

Encrypted File Sharing: P2P Fights Back
Masking the user's IP address is the Holy Grail of file-sharing networks. With a hidden IP address, Web surfers can visit Web sites, post messages and send e-mail without leaving a traditional trail that can link the communication with a particular Internet connection to a computer's physical location.

Is it possible to end the investigations and prosecutions that the RIAA, the music download police and similar entities use to prosecute users of file-sharing networks? The answer depends, say online security experts, on which next-generation technology proves to be more successful. So far, enforcement investigators hold the upper hand.

Thursday, May 27, 2004
 
  Music giants sue 493 more downloaders
Washington The recording industry on Monday sued 493 more people it said were illegally sharing music across the Internet. The latest round of lawsuits raised to nearly 3,000 the number of people who have been sued nationwide by recording companies.

As in previous cases, the recording industry filed its latest complaints against ÒJohn DoeÓ defendants, identifying them only by their numeric Internet protocol addresses. It said lawyers will work through the courts to request subpoenas against universities and some commercial Internet providers to learn the defendants' names.

Israel spy agency recruiting on Web
JERUSALEM Israel's normally secretive Mossad spy agency came in from the cold this week, launching a website aimed at recruiting staff ranging from computer security specialists to English-speaking waiters and agents for "special tasks." The site, which is available in both Hebrew and English, has a main page featuring a shadowy figure standing next to an Israeli flag and a link to a letter from Mossad director Meir Dagan inviting "the best and most suitable to join us."

Yahoo embraces antispyware
Yahoo on Thursday is expected to release an upgrade for its downloadable toolbar to help people detect and remove spyware, or malicious files, on their PCs. For now, the Web portal will be testing the technology, which has been supplied by antispyware company PestPatrol. It will offer the toolbar upgrade only to a select number of people at beta.toolbar.yahoo.com, Yahoo spokeswoman Stephanie Iwamasa said.

The software can perform a high-level scan of files on a PC to detect viruses or other applications that were installed surreptitiously and are used to spy on computer behavior.

Report: 'Tweens' Less Likely to Pirate
Young children are far less likely than teenagers to illegally download music, movies and software from the Internet, according to the results of an online poll that were released today. Fourteen percent of children ages eight to 12 said they have downloaded music from the Internet without paying for it, according to the poll conducted by Harris Interactive Corp. Three percent said they have downloaded software and 2 percent said they have downloaded movies.

California eBay scam artist sent to federal prison
SACRAMENTO Ñ A scam artist who portrayed rummage sale art as masterpieces in online auctions was sentenced Tuesday to nearly four years in federal prison. Kenneth Fetterman, 36, a former pizza deliveryman and soldier who tried to deal art dating from the Renaissance to abstract expressionism, was ordered to repay more than $94,000 in restitution to the people he defrauded.

Fetterman, of Placerville, pleaded guilty March 3 in U.S. District Court to six counts of money laundering in a scheme in which he and two accomplices created more than 40 online aliases on eBay to falsely drive up bidding on hundreds of paintings from November 1998 to June 2000.

Maryland Governor Signs Tough Anti-Spam Law
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Internet "spam" purveyors who hide behind false e-mail addresses could face up to 10 years in jail and fines of $25,000 per day under a new state law signed Wednesday by Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich. The Maryland Spam Deterrence Act allows state officials to arrest and fine those who engage in a variety of deceptive tactics to send junk e-mail. The law was hailed as the nation's toughest by Internet provider America Online ., which has helped officials in other states track down spammers who send out fraudulent messages.

Porn spammers ignore new rule
Spammers flooding the Internet with pornographic solicitations apparently are not abiding by a new federal rule that took effect last week. Not only did illegal sexually-explicit spam fail to slow down after the regulations took effect May 19, but pornographic e-mail measured by one antispam company jumped from around 2 million messages in a 40-hour period last week to around 2.5 million during the same period this week.

The Can-Spam Act that President Bush signed in December required the Federal Trade Commission to come up with a label for unsolicited pornographic e-mail. The FTC responded by declaring that anyone sending sexually oriented material must include the warning "SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT:" in the Subject line. Violators face fines.

Survey: E-Government Slowly Winning Acceptance
Telephones, letters and face-to-face contact still beat out the Internet when it comes to how Americans choose to interact with their government, according to a report released earlier this week by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

But the Internet's popularity as a way for obtaining government information and services continues to grow -- percent of the Internet users who took part in the survey said they used the Internet either to obtain information from a government Web site or to obtain services from a government office or agency.

E-gov must follow the money
The most successful e-government projects are those where the money follows the directive, says Gartner research director Greg Kreizman. Kreizman, who specialises in public sector research and is visiting SA, says e-government lessons learnt in the US and UK show that focusing on the portals that deliver services to citizens and the interoperability between various government departments give the best results.

SA losing role as Africa's technology leader
It is extremely ironic that the South African government's legislative efforts that affect new technologies like voice over IP (VOIP) and wireless fidelity (WiFi) are actually working against the development goals it is hoping to achieve. This is the view of Bridges.org, an international non-profit organisation that promotes the effective use of ICT in the developing world, with the aim of reducing poverty and improving people's lives.

The Ongoing, Pointless Quest of the RIAA
While the music industry claims its "sue-'em-all" campaign is dramatically reducing the number of file-sharers, and while Apple boasts people downloaded 70 million files from its iTunes Music Store in its first year, at a conservative estimate, 4 million people are online at any given moment uploading, downloading or sharing 1 billion files every month.


The Ongoing, Pointless Quest of the RIAA
While the music industry claims its "sue-'em-all" campaign is dramatically reducing the number of file-sharers, and while Apple boasts people downloaded 70 million files from its iTunes Music Store in its first year, at a conservative estimate, 4 million people are online at any given moment uploading, downloading or sharing 1 billion files every month.


CA Seeks $10 Million Settlement with SEC
Seeking to build on its growing security business, CA unveiled an ambitious plan that combines aspects of managed security services (MSS) with patch management services and a vulnerability assessment and remediation appliance. Seeking to move beyond a US$2 billion accounting scandal, Computer Associates has offered to make a $10 million payment to put the probe to rest and has rolled out an information security product and services push designed to capitalize on what is already a strong growth area.

Minnesota woman caught in crackdown on music downloaders
A Minnesota woman who says she doesn't even know how to use her home computer has been caught up in the music industry's crackdown on people who download copyrighted music illegally. While Tammy Lafky might not use the computer, her daughter does. And what 15-year-old Cassandra might have done, like millions of other teenagers and adults around the world, could cost her mother thousands of dollars.


Bush signs bills targeting spam, offensive names
The subject line says it's "re: our meeting." But you open the email and it's an offer to sell you prescription drugs or to enhance parts of your body. Under legislation signed Tuesday by Gov. Jeb Bush, the attorney general could go after anyone in Florida who sends such email with a deceptive subject line.


Bill would require employers to say if they check e-mail, online use
SACRAMENTO (AP) - Employers would have to tell their employees if they monitor their e-mails and Internet activities under a bill approved Tuesday by the state Senate. Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey, said her legislation would give employees the same privacy protections they have when they talk on the telephone at work.


'Pirate Act' raises civil rights concerns
File swappers concerned about getting in trouble with record labels over illegal downloads may soon have a major new worry: the U.S. Department of Justice. A proposal that the Senate may vote on as early as next week would let federal prosecutors file civil lawsuits against suspected copyright infringers, with fines reaching tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.


Tuesday, May 25, 2004
 
  Ringtones left out of digital music price wars
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- A recent price war has made Internet song downloads cheaper while the price tag on a mobile phone ringtone has barely budged, and in some cases, is creeping up, a new report on Tuesday said. The price discrepancy between downloads and ringtones -- those ubiquitous tuneful greetings programmed into millions of handsets -- can be laid squarely at the feet of record companies, according to London-based consultancy Informa Plc.

The rising cost of protecting your identity
NEW YORK (AP) -- With identity theft rampant, we need to be cautious with our personal information. But consumer advocates say there's something else we ought to be vigilant about: expensive services for identity theft protection. The prevalence of credit card fraud and other identity-related crimes has given rise to a cottage industry of services aimed at protecting people from falling victim.

Online Retailers Collectively Reach Profitability
NEW YORK (AP) -- Online retailers collectively made a profit last year for the first time as sales jumped a better-than-expected 51 percent, in a sign of continued resilience in e-commerce, an industry survey found. Online sales surged to $114 billion last year, surpassing forecasts of $96 billion, fueled by the travel category, according to an annual survey of 150 retailers conducted by Shop.org, the online arm of the National Retail Federation, and Forrester Research, an Internet research company.

High court to rule on Net wine sales
The U.S. Supreme Court will decide by next year whether Americans have the right to shop freely for wine over the Internet. The court said Monday it will hear a case in which the Institute for Justice, a libertarian law firm in Washington, D.C., challenged a New York state law banning wine shipments from out-of-state wineries, and a similar lawsuit in Michigan. Approximately 25 states have similar laws, which the institute charges are protectionist measures backed by local liquor distributors who enjoy fat markups. Federal appeals courts are split on whether the state laws are constitutional or not. A decision is expected by late June 2005.

Study: Online Crime Costs Rising
Online criminals are attacking corporate and government networks more frequently, costing businesses an estimated $666 million in 2003, according to a survey of computer security executives released today. The survey was conducted by CSO [Chief Security Officer] magazine in cooperation with the U.S. Secret Service and the CERT cybersecurity center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Europe's Net File-Swappers Unfazed by Lawsuits
LONDON (Reuters) - The threat of lawsuits has failed to deter Europeans from using the Internet to hoard free music, movies and video games, a technology firm that measures Internet traffic said on Monday. The latest Hollywood movies, television shows and albums zipping between Internet users accounts for 70 percent to 80 percent of all Internet traffic handled daily by European Internet service providers (ISPs).

Music industry sues 493 more people over file sharing
WASHINGTON (AP) - The recording industry on Monday sued 493 more people it said were illegally sharing music across the Internet. The latest round of lawsuits raised to nearly 3,000 the number of people who have been sued nationwide by recording companies. As in previous cases, the recording industry filed its latest complaints against ``John Doe'' defendants, identifying them only by their numeric Internet protocol addresses. It said lawyers will work through the courts to request subpoenas against universities and some commercial Internet providers to learn the defendants' names.

Toys R Us Suit Alleges Amazon Violated Pact
Toys R Us Inc. sued Amazon.com Inc., claiming the world's top Internet retailer is violating an exclusivity agreement by allowing other merchants to sell toys, games and baby items on its Web site. More than 4,000 products, including Monopoly games, Razor-brand scooters and baby strollers are being sold on Amazon.com by other retailers, according to the lawsuit filed in Passaic County, N.J., Superior Court. Toys R Us is seeking an injunction and the return of more than $200 million it has paid Amazon.com under the 10-year agreement.

German company suing Google for alleged trademark violation
BERLIN (AP) - A German company is suing Google Inc. over allegations the Internet search engine allows rival companies to buy ads using trademarked terms, an attorney said Monday. Metaspinner Media says Google Deutschland has sold ads triggered when users search for the company's ``Preispiraten,'' or ``Price Pirate,'' software, which lets users compare prices in online auctions and shops.

Managed Security Services: A Hedge Against E-Mail Attacks
In today's world of merged business and technology applications, e-mail has become as essential as the telephone. But e-mail on the corporate level is also one of the most deadly communication tools. It is through e-mail that most security risks occur, warn security specialists. If the corporate e-mail system is not tightly guarded, hackers can use it as a private access line to the computer system. Whether the security breach is done by a hacker or by attack tools like phishing scams, worms and viruses, the corporation's computer network is at great risk.

Beware the security risks in outsourcing
While there may be benefits for enterprises that implement an outsourcing strategy, companies must identify and manage the security risks before they sign any agreement, according to researchers at Gartner. "The key to successful and secure outsourcing agreements is understanding the security and privacy risks for a business process, application or technology function early in the outsourcing decision process," said Kelly Kavanagh, senior analyst at Gartner.

Clothing e-tailer sues over pop-up ads
Internet clothing and outdoor equipment retailer LL Bean has sued four companies that it says are using adware to generate rivals' pop-up ads on its web site, accusing them of infringing upon LL Bean trade mark rights. The complaints accuse retailers Nordstrom, JC Penney, Atkins Nutritionals and Gevalia Kaffee of trading on the L.L.Bean name through their use of pop-up ad technology from the controversial behavioural marketing company Claria Corporation (previously known as Gator).

ICANN wins first round against VeriSign
ICANN, the body responsible for the internetÕs domain naming system, has won the first round in a legal action filed against it by domain registry VeriSign over alleged interference with the launch of a new VeriSign service, according to media reports. In his ruling, issued yesterday, US District Judge A Howard Matz dismissed antitrust allegations against ICANN, calling them Òawfully vagueÓ, reports the Associated Press. The registry now has until 7th June to substantiate the claims.

UKÕs Data Protection Act might not meet European Union standards
Last December, a ruling by the Court of Appeal Ð known as the Durant decision Ð narrowed the scope of the UK's Data Protection Act. Today, privacy experts at Masons warn that it is based on "faulty reasoning" and calls into question the UK's implementation of the EU's Data Protection Directive. The case, a dispute between the Financial Services Authority and Michael John Durant, narrowed the scope of data protection to such an extent that, on a subject access request, it applied only to computerised personal information which focused on a living individual in a biographically significant way.

Web pricing error is a question of degree in France
An e-tailer whose web site offered a Sony TV for sale at a price ten times less than that offered by his rivals was not in breach of contract when he refused to fulfil an order, because the pricing error invalidated the contract, a French tribunal has ruled. According to a report from Paris-based law firm Franklin, writing for International Law Office, the TV, a big screen type known as a retroprojector, was priced on the unnamed sellerÕs web site at around Û750, plus shipping.

Street fight sparked by chat room brawl
Over 30 people were arrested this week after a war of words in an internet chat room spilled onto the streets of Dallas, Texas. As rival gangs left cyberspace, they resorted to their traditional weapons of choice: fists, baseball bats and shovels. "It's the first time that we have seen it," Police Officer Joe Harn told Associated Press. It appears that typing on a computer was an unsatisfactory vent for the gang members' frustrations, which is why they escalated to the street what a gang researcher described as their "disrespect thing".

Monday, May 24, 2004
 
  IBM Asks Court To Reject SCO Copyright Claims
As part of its legal wrangling with The SCO Group, IBM has filed a motion for summary judgment in an attempt to remove copyright claims from the multibillion-dollar lawsuit.
In its request, Big Blue cited a lack of evidence from SCO that would prove wrongdoing on IBM's part. The copyright claims in question are considered a major component of SCO's case. The decision is in the hands of the presiding judge in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City.

'Schwarzenegger's DNA' No Longer for Sale
SACRAMENTO, Calif. Ñ A seller on eBay tried to auction off a cough drop that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger allegedly used, then tossed into a trash can Ñ listing the item under the heading "Schwarzenegger's DNA."


Senator undecided over whether to fire aide for sex 'blog'
WASHINGTON Ñ Sen. Mike DeWine said Thursday that he has not decided whether to fire an aide who allegedly posted her exploits in an Internet diary, including accepting $400 from a married man for sex. "We're in the process of completing a review," the Ohio Republican said. "It's a personnel matter." However, DeWine said he expects to make a decision on the aide's job soon.

Two L.A. Sites Raided in Piracy Cases
In one of the largest bootleg-movie raids to date, Los Angeles police said Friday that they had shut down two operations that together could illegally copy 2.7 million DVDs a year. The raids were part of a push by Hollywood studios and law enforcement authorities to close down a burgeoning black market for movies. The films are typically recorded in movie theaters on a digital camcorder, copied with DVD burners and then sold by street vendors or distributed over the Internet.

Performance artists embrace Web
(AP) -- Let's say you're a small theater company and you want to tour the Southwest on a shoestring budget, or you want to find theaters in rural New England that are interested in experimental dance. The solutions to your performance problems are a double-click away. "So much of touring information is in the oral tradition, and that's the great thing about the Web -- it takes the oral tradition and puts it somewhere tangible," Andy Horwitz, director of communications at Manhattan arts center P.S. 122, says.

Farmers turn to Web for help
CHAMPAIGN, Illinois (AP) -- When Stanley Blunier needs help deciding when to buy crop insurance or how to keep track of his stored grain, he doesn't consult pricey professionals. He jumps online. The University of Illinois' site farmdoc and others like it help farmers through the pitfalls of their profession in a farm economy that makes it a luxury to hire accountants and marketing consultants.

Court Order Halts DVD Copying Technology Sale
ST. LOUIS -- A California company that specializes in encryption technology has obtained the latest court order barring a Missouri company's sale of popular DVD-copying software. Macrovision Corp. received the preliminary injunction in its patent-infringement lawsuit against 321 Studios Inc., already forbidden by federal judges in recent months from selling its DVD-cloning software.

Microsoft Ordered to Search for Evidence
BALTIMORE -- A federal judge ordered Microsoft Corp. to search for evidence a vice president told employees in 2000 to destroy e-mails, an attorney for a company suing the software giant said Friday. Burst.com attorney Spencer Hosie said the order was important not only for his client, but for all cases against Microsoft. "It appears Microsoft as matter of institutional policy has decided to destroy e-mails in anticipation of litigation," Hosie said.

Napster Arrives in Britain, But Success Isn't Certain
There's an article in Britain's prestigious Times Online today called "Q&A: Napster and the Music Industry," which seems -- at least on the surface -- to explain what Napster 2 will mean to Britons now that its owner, Roxio, has succeeded in snaking it into the United Kingdom. "Easy, safe and legal" Napster relaunched, said the Financial Times yesterday. Does that mean OD2 or iTunes, for example, or LimeWire, Blubster, BearShare, Morpheus, Grokster or any of the other commercial P2P applications is hard to use, unsafe and illegal?

SMS leads to suicide
New Delhi - An Indian teenager killed herself after receiving a cellphone text message saying she had failed her school leaving exams, although she had actually passed, a report said on Monday. The 17-year-old girl hanged herself on Sunday morning after getting the SMS giving her the wrong information, the Hindustan Times reported. The girl's parents had been out attending yoga classes with their second daughter when the girl committed suicide in the central Indian town of Indore, the report said.

112 SIM-less calls suspended
[Johannesburg, 24 May 2004] - The ability to dial the internationally recognised 112 emergency number from cellphones without SIM cards has been temporarily suspended pending a ruling by the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA). Cleo Socikwa, head of corporate communications at Cell C, says the service is still available from all the networks to cellphones that contain a SIM, even if the PIN has not been entered.

'Copycat' magazine sets off legal row
A family-owned publishing company has taken legal action against a big rival for allegedly copying one of its titles. Ramsay, Son & Parker, publisher of Getaway, has objected to Wegbreek, an Afrikaans-language title published by Media24. Wegbreek went on sale in March, the same month that Getaway celebrated its 15th anniversary. Both magazines are aimed at the outdoor leisure market and earn a significant portion of their revenue from classified advertising, particularly for leisure destinations.

Sunday, May 23, 2004
 
  Gates backs blogs for businesses
In a speech to an audience of chief executives, Mr Gates said the regularly updated journals, or blogs, could be a good way for firms to tell customers, staff and partners what they are doing. He said blogs had advantages over other, older ways of communicating such as e-mail and websites. More than 700 Microsoft employees are already using blogs to keep people up to date with their projects.

Friday, May 21, 2004
 
  EC Passes Controversial Patent Directive
The European Commission (EC) has passed a controversial directive that opponents claim will bolster the lot of big companies at the expense of small ones and will stifle innovation.

The so-called Computer-Implemented Inventions directive, which would harmonize how software patents are issued throughout the European Union, created a furor when it was proposed last year. Protestors took to the streets in Brussels, Belgium, and passive Web site demonstrations were held on the Internet.

Old Economy Fed Up with Cyber-Security
In the 1976 movie "Network," a television anchorman famously implores his viewers to yell, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Yesterday, in more measured tones, a high-powered business lobby said just that about computer security on the network of all networks, the Internet.

The Business Roundtable -- which includes the chief executives of many of the nation's largest "old economy" corporations -- launched a public relations blitz that takes the software industry to task for developing products that are continuously vulnerable to hackers and virus writers.

Remarks by Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation
BILL GATES: Well, good morning. It's fun for me every year to kind of give an update on some of the big things that have been happening, because in the world of software technology, the really big impacts are things that require about five years from their inception to where they're really having mainstream impact. And we're in the middle of a number of those right now that are super important and very, very exciting.

SA buying into e-commerce
South Africans are increasingly comfortable about shopping on the Internet, judging by online orders for Mother's Day gifts this year, says online florist service NetFlorist. NetFlorist reports that Mother's Day is its biggest occasion of the year, and that loving offspring bought a record 4 500 bouquets and hampers this year.

Thursday, May 20, 2004
 
  Court underlines risk management threats
Johannesburg: Internet attorney Reinhardt Buys says a recent court judgment underlines the importance of IT risk management in companies.Buys says that notwithstanding the requirements of the King II report, a recent court case concluded that a person may be held liable for damages or losses that resulted from a so-called "negligent omission" - the failure and/or refusal to do something when reasonably required to do so.

He says the risk management duty was established by the Supreme Court in the judgment of Minister of Safety and Security v Van Duivenboden [2002] 3 All SA 741 (SCA). In the judgment, Judge Nugent stated: "A negligent omission is unlawful only if it occurs in circumstances that the law regards as sufficient to give rise to a legal duty to avoid negligently causing harm. It is important to keep that concept quite separate from the concept of fault."

People are the weak spot in IT security
Risk management and internal control often do not enjoy the same prominence as other requirements for good corporate governance. Yet these are issues that the King committee on corporate governance treated with due gravity.

The King 2 report on corporate governance defines risk management as the identification and evaluation of actual and potential risk areas as they pertain to the company as a total entity, followed by a process of either termination, transfer, acceptance (tolerance) or mitigation of each risk.

A similar risk management duty was placed on company directors in a recent supreme court of appeal judgment on information technology (IT) risk management, in the case of Minister of Safety and Security v Van Duivenboden.

South Africa to Ban Online Gambling?
Experts are predicting that the South African government may find that proposed laws to ban online gambling will be unenforceable. The new National Gambling Bill goes before parliamentary committees for debate and according to IT attorney Reinhardt Buys, the new bill could run into unforeseen problems and is unlikely to eliminate Internet gambling.

This view seems to be backed by the South African Chamber of Business (SACOB) which said: ÒSACOB believes this provision will be very difficult to police. One only has to consider the high rate of pornographic material and spam that is distributed via the Internet and the difficulty in combating it to be aware that the monitoring of material accessed over the Internet is an extremely difficult task, and as yet no appropriate solutions have been found.Ó

Email a legal headache
E-mail and the internet make life faster, easier and more productive, but businesses are learning that they can also bring about legal risks and reputational ruin. As e-mail moves from personal correspondence to a valuable business tool, more lawsuits will result and the market for products to fight spam will increase.

A recent international survey by the e-Policy Institute found that 62% of employers monitor employee e-mail content and 68% cite legal liability as the primary reason. In the USA more than 87% of businesses have written e-mail policies that govern and limit the use of e-mail services by employees.

Most banks heed the call
Johannesburg - Most banks have responded to a request for information on progress made in verifying the identities of their clients, the Registrar of Banks said on Thursday. The Registrar of Banks Errol Kruger said a recommendation to Finance Minister Trevor Manuel on an possible extension of the cut-off date would be made soon.

Napster in surprise UK launch
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Digital download service Napster has scored a major victory over archrival iTunes by launching in Britain, the first of the high-flying Internet music stores to make their European debut. In a move that surprised many in the industry, Napster announced that as of Thursday the music download and song-streaming service would be live to users in Britain only.

Political ads popping up on Web sites
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Search for recipes on Cooking Light's Web site in the coming days and you're likely to find first lady Laura Bush praising her husband's education policies. Check game statistics at Sports Illustrated's site and you may see John Kerry's picture on an ad seeking donations in support of the Democrat. Presidential campaigns and the political parties are venturing into virtual advertising this year like never before, leading some Internet industry analysts to anticipate a banner year for political advertising online.

Sportsnetwork.com, ESPN go head to head in court
NEW YORK Ñ A company providing minor league baseball statistics claims in a lawsuit Monday that it has caught ESPN stealing. The Computer Information Network, which does business as The Sports Network and Sportsnetwork.com, accused the cable television network of "flagrant and brazen" theft of score updates and box scores by using the network's password-protected computer server.

U.K. cyber church tightens security
LONDON Ñ Britain's first three-dimensional cyber church has been forced to tighten security after a slew of abusive visitors ranted from the pulpit and swore in the aisles.

The Church of Fools said Wednesday it has withdrawn the "shout" button, which allows visitors to address everyone who is present, and added more wardens, who use a "smite" button to log out people who use abusive language. The apse area, including pulpit, lectern and altar have also been closed to visitors.

Google's ad plans provoke grumbling
Google's success in Web advertising is fast becoming bittersweet for other companies that rely on ads to pay the bills. With the search engine's move last week to sell display advertising across the Web, Google firmly established itself as a major on-line advertising network and a solicitor to deep-pocketed brand advertisers. That's a meaningful shift as the Mountain View, Calif., company heads for a $2.7-billion (U.S.) initial public offering.

E-Mail Scammer Gets Four Years
An Internet scammer who used e-mail and a fraudulent Web site to steal hundreds of credit card numbers was sentenced to almost four years in jail Tuesday, one of the stiffest-ever penalties handed down for online fraud. Houston, Texas, federal court Judge Vanessa Gilmore sentenced Houston resident Zachary Hill to 46 months in jail for his role in duping consumers into turning over 473 credit card numbers.

The Justice Department said the sentence is "one of, if not the longest" ever handed down against an e-mail scammer, said spokesman Michael Kulstad.

Service Tracks When E-mail Is Read, How Long and Where
An Internet service is about to test the frontiers of e-mail privacy. DidTheyReadIt.com, which will launch Monday, allows anyone to secretly track e-mails they send. You'll see whether someone opens your e-mail, how long the recipient keeps it open -- even where geographically the recipient is reading it.

The reaction could be harsh. "It will freak people out," says Internet expert Esther Dyson. "It violates our electronic space in a way that's as uncomfortable as someone violating our physical space," says Mitchell Kertzman, a partner at technology investment firm Hummer Winblad. "Add this company to the long list of people who are making the Internet a less attractive place to live and work."

Lessons from the United States and Europe on Computer-Related Patents
Summary: The United States and Europe are each struggling with how to protect Internet-era inventions, including computer programs and business methods, with existing patent laws. The result is confusing and not entirely resolved. This article explains the importance of taking advantage of the worldwide opportunities in computer-related business method inventions.

Electronic Signatures and the New Economy
Summary: The new U.S. electronic signature law (the E-Sign Act) eliminates legal barriers to using electronic technology to sign contracts, to collect and store documents, and to send and receive notices and disclosures. Under the act, no contract, signature or record can be denied legal effect solely because it is in electronic form. This article explains the history and effect of the E-Sign Act.

Now they'll know if you read their e-mail
An Internet service is about to test the frontiers of e-mail privacy. DidTheyReadIt.com, which will launch Monday, allows anyone to secretly track e-mails they send. You'll see whether someone opens your e-mail, how long the recipient keeps it open Ñ even where geographically the recipient is reading it. The reaction could be harsh. "It will freak people out," says Internet expert Esther Dyson.

Google defines good manners for adware
In an attempt to cut down on misbehaving adware and spyware, Google has released a set of suggested principles for software makers to follow when writing programs that embed themselves on Internet users' PCs. The guidelines, released Tuesday evening, say software should follow common-sense rules of politeness: It should admit what it's doing, permit itself to be disabled and not do sneaky things like leak personal information.

FTC: Smutty spam must give recipient bare warning
WASHINGTON (AP) - Sexually explicit Internet spam must now carry a warning label. A Federal Trade Commission rule went into effect Wednesday requiring that unsolicited commercial e-mail that contains sexually oriented material include the words SEXUALLY EXPLICIT in the subject line.

SA buying into e-commerce
South Africans are increasingly comfortable about shopping on the Internet, judging by online orders for Mother's Day gifts this year, says online florist service NetFlorist. NetFlorist reports that Mother's Day is its biggest occasion of the year, and that loving offspring bought a record 4 500 bouquets and hampers this year.

'For the first time in our history, we took more than 1 000 orders in one day (Wednesday, 5 May)', says NetFlorist GM Ryan Bacher.


After flashy failures, online groceries quietly grow
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- After the spectacular crashes of big-name Internet grocers in the late 1990s, the dream of a grand new wave of online food stores appeared to fizzle.

But with intentionally meager fanfare, grocers have made Internet shopping available to tens of millions of consumers nationwide, and upcoming expansions will expand it to millions more. Industry watchers say it's no longer a question of whether Internet grocery can be successful, but rather of how big it will become.

Wednesday, May 19, 2004
 
  Kazaa Wins Procedural Victory in Aussie Court
The Australian recording industry's bid to eyeball material gathered in a series of raids at the sites of alleged music pirates -- including Sharman Networks, maker of the popular online file-sharing program Kazaa , and Sharman partners Altnet and Brilliant Digital Entertainment -- was deflated last week in a proceeding in a New South Wales federal court. During the proceeding, Justice Murray Wilcox denied lawyers for the recording industry direct access to any of the materials seized in the so-called Anton Piller raids earlier this year.

"The discovery process that would have resulted from the Anton Piller raid has been replaced with a regular process of discovery," Kevin Bermeister, CEO of Altnet and Brilliant, which is based in Woodland Hills, California, told TechNewsWorld.

New Evidence Points to Cisco Network Hack
More details about the computer code stolen from Cisco surfaced on Tuesday, including new samples of the source code and information on how the code was distributed, four days after a Russian Web site reported news of the theft and posted sample code files to support the claim. Additional copies of Cisco code files for the Internetwork Operating System (IOS) may be circulating on the Internet, after the thief compromised a Sun server on Cisco's network, then briefly posted a link to the source code files on a file server belonging to the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, according to Alexander Antipov, a security expert at Positive Technologies, a security consulting company in Moscow, who was interviewed by e-mail and instant messaging service.

FBI Probes Possible Cisco Software Theft
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The FBI is investigating the possible theft of source code from networking equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , the agency said on Tuesday. "We're aware of the situation and we're working with Cisco regarding the potential loss of proprietary data," said Paul Bresson, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, confirming the probe.

He said Cisco asked the bureau to look into the matter, but he declined to discuss the case further. Cisco said on Monday it was looking into reports that some of the software code used to run its gear that directs Internet traffic may have been stolen. The company did not say whether any of its code was actually stolen, or if so how much.

Lawyers for Kazaa Argue Against Copyright Infringement in Australia
MELBOURNE, Australia -- Lawyers representing the makers of the Kazaa file-sharing software, Sharman Networks, told the Australian Federal Court on Friday that their client has in no way infringed copyright. The counsel for Sharman Networks, Robert Ellicott, said the software maker is not the uploader of music files, and therefore isn't liable for file trading on its network. Furthermore, because the courts have yet to show anyone has violated copyright by using Kazaa, an infringement case against Sharman has no merit in law, the company argued.

Yahoo Releases E-Mail Standard to Fight Spam
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Internet portal Yahoo Inc. (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) on Tuesday released an e-mail standard that prevents "spam" marketers from hiding unwanted messages behind legitimate e-mail addresses. The technique, if widely adopted, could help Internet providers more easily block the unwanted bulk messages that currently account for up to two-thirds of all e-mail traffic. Yahoo's proposed standard, known as DomainKeys, would embed outgoing messages with an encrypted

Phishing scam reports skyrocket in April
The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) received reports of more than 1,100 unique phishing campaigns in April, a 178 percent increase from the previous month, according to figures shared with the IDG News Service. The reports represent a significant increase in phishing scams, which capture personal information from Internet users with a combination of unsolicited commercial ("spam") e-mail messages and Web sites designed to look like legitimate online businesses, said Dan Maier, director of product marketing at Tumbleweed Inc. and an APWG spokesman.

The large increase comes on the heels of a 43 percent rise between February and March, with financial services and retail companies getting hit particularly hard, said Maier.

ICASA makes USAL recommendations
The Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) has recommended applicants for seven of the nine underserviced area licences (USALs) that were up for grabs.
The announcement will come as a relief to the bidders, many of whom have complained that the delays Ð the original invitation to apply for USALs was made in December 2002 Ð have placed an enormous strain on their resources.

ICT legislation 'stifling growth'
South Africa needs a more competitive telecommunications industry and the legislation governing it must be addressed to allow the industry to grow. These were some of the issues raised at the Futurex conference in Sandton, as speakers presented their views on convergence and the local telecoms industry.

Delegates were critical of the Telkom monopoly, and promoted the idea of a more competitive telecoms industry. 'Telkom has the broadest, most entrenched telecoms monopoly in the world,' said Transtel CEO Karl Socikwa, who is also chairman of the second national operator interim board.

EMC wins storage patent dispute with HP
EMC Corp. is seeking a court injunction to prevent Hewlett-Packard Co. from shipping its CASA storage appliance with the remote and local mirroring software it presently includes, following a jury verdict Monday in a software patent dispute between the two companies.

A jury in U.S. District Court in Worcester, Massachusetts, found that HP has infringed three of EMC's software patents relating to the creation of identical copies, or mirrors, of system files. Two of the patents cover a remote mirroring technique used in EMC's Symmetrix Remote Data Facility, EMC said. The other covers a mirroring technique used in the company's TimeFinder software.

Dutch man pleads guilty to fraud in stock swindle, spending spree
A Dutch man pleaded guilty Monday to swindling wealthy New Yorkers by promising an inside track to stock in Google and blazing through $350,000 of their money in a three-month spree of opulent hotels, pricey restaurants and Atlantic City gambling.
Late last year, as speculation swirled around the possibility that the search-engine company would go public, Shamoon Rafiq began meeting investors in New York and telling them he was a venture capitalist and college friend of the company's founders, prosecutors said.


Judge lets Eminem suit against Apple, MTV continue
A federal judge says Eminem's copyright infringement claims over use of one of his songs in a commercial for Apple Computer can go forward. Apple featured a 10-year-old singing Eminem's Oscar-winning song Lose Yourself in an ad on MTV for the computer company's iPod music player and iTunes music service.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that Eminem's publishing company's suit can proceed against several companies, including MTV parent company Viacom and advertising agency TBWA/Chiat/Day.


ISPN Sued Over Minor League Baseball Scores
Sports score Web operator Sportsnetwork.com sued Walt Disney Co's ESPN on Monday, claiming its bigger competitor was stealing minor league baseball scores for its own site and refused to stop.Sportsnetwork quoted ESPN General Counsel David Pahl as saying in an April 29 letter that ESPN's SportsTicker service would continue to use factual information from Sportsnetwork for end-of-inning updates, box scores and more but was not taking "real time" data.


Cisco investigates source code leak
An unspecified amount of the proprietary source code that drives Cisco Systems' networking hardware has appeared on the Internet, the technology giant acknowledged early Monday.
A representative could not confirm, however, that network intruders made off with 800MB of code, as reported by a Russian security group over the weekend.


Arrest of Japanese file-sharing developer is a threat, lawyer says
A lawyer for a Japanese professor detained on copyright violations for his file-sharing technology called the arrest ``extremely dangerous'' Monday, saying the move threatened the freedom of software creators.

Isamu Kaneko, a 33-year-old assistant professor at the prestigious University of Tokyo, was arrested May 10 on copyright-related charges for developing and offering the popular Winny software, which lets people swap movies and video games over the Internet.


Roundtable Discussion: Pop-Up Ads and the Law
Pop-ups and banner ads are the bane of many Internet users and the boon of companies trying to pitch goods and services.
They're also the topic of a number of suits in courts around the country, because when such ads use a search for one company's trademarked term to point potential customers toward a rival, it's potentially trademark infringement.


Cyberspace to be open for all
Johannesburg - Results of a survey conducted by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on the perceived importance of agreed upon targets for improving connectivity and access in the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) show overwhelmingly that cyberspace should be a shared resource. The results were released earlier this week to coincide with the World Telecommunications Day, as ITU celebrated its 139th annivessary.

Rural schoolkids get e-mail
Tzaneen - Pupils at four rural high schools have each been given their own email addresses and free internet access as part of a three-month pilot project called Information Technology in Schools. The R3.5m project is run by a South African-Swedish joint venture company, Libendo-Olympic, and aims to give poor pupils the same technological advantages as more privileged children elsewhere in the world.

SAB moves to protect vuvuzela
Cape Town - Vuvuzela, the braying trumpet which has become an ubiquitous symbol of South African soccer, will in future be fully trademarked to prevent its inventor being ripped off, SABMiller said on Wednesday. The beer company will give entrepreneur Neil van Schalkwyk legal and mentoring aid.

Gates thinks big, gives big
Forbes magazine puts a dollar figure on the Seattle, Washington-area native's net worth -- $46.6 billion in 2003 -- and crowned him the world's richest person for the seventh year in a row. His company, Microsoft, reports that it raked in $32.19 billion in revenues for the fiscal year ending in June 2003, ranking it among Fortune's top 50 largest U.S.-based corporations.

How e-mail can kill a business
E-mail and the internet make life faster, easier and more productive, but businesses are learning that they can also bring about legal risks and reputational ruin.
As e-mail moves from personal correspondence to a valuable business tool, more lawsuits will result and the market for products to fight spam will increase.


SA last, but not least, in egovernment survey
South Africa remains last in a survey of 22 countries able to conduct electronic government operations, but this should be seen in the correct context said Accenture's Charles Webster on Monday.

"South Africa is the only African country in the survey and was competing against first world countries. In this light its not bad at all," said Webster who as part of Accenture, a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, surveyed 22 country's "egovernment" ability.

Fine-Tuning Spam Filtering
Because the volume of spam has increased from about 10 percent of all e-mail in 2001 to more than 50 percent today, corporations and ISPs have been trying to find ways to keep the junk mail from overwhelming users' inboxes. Filtering products, which rely on several techniques to separate needed messages from unwanted solicitations, have helped cut down on the bulk-mail deluge.

However, these filtering products have a dark side: They can inadvertently block wanted messages, often without the user ever being aware of the block. This is a significant problem, one vendors are working diligently to fix, but such a remedy seems more of a long-term than a short-term probability.

Monday, May 17, 2004
 
  E-commerce is coming of age, says Paul Markillie, but not in the way predicted in the bubble years
WHEN the technology bubble burst in 2000, the crazy valuations for online companies vanished with it, and many businesses folded. The survivors plugged on as best they could, encouraged by the growing number of internet users. Now valuations are rising again and some of the dotcoms are making real profits, but the business world has become much more cautious about the internet's potential. The funny thing is that the wild predictions made at the height of the boomÑnamely, that vast chunks of the world economy would move into cyberspaceÑare, in one way or another, coming true.

The raw numbers tell only part of the story. According to America's Department of Commerce, online retail sales in the world's biggest market last year rose by 26%, to $55 billion. That sounds a lot of money, but it amounts to only 1.6% of total retail sales. The vast majority of people still buy most things in the good old Òbricks-and-mortarÓ world.

Jhb man behind computer crash
Johannesburg - A 32-year-old Johannesburg man was found guilty on Monday of loading a virus onto the computers of Edgars, an act which the company claims cost them R20m and affected up to 700 stores.

Because the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act governing what employees may legally do with company computers was not yet in force, Berend Howard of Morningside Manor was charged with malicious damaged to Edcon property.

Microsoft Disputes $258 Mln Legal Fee
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Lawyers seeking $258 million in legal fees from Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) $1.1 billion class action settlement in California are asking for too much, the world's largest software maker said on Thursday. The fees, the largest ever in an antitrust settlement, work out to $3,019 per hour for Eugene Crew, the class action's lead attorney, and more than $2,000 per hour for other attorneys as well as hourly fees of $1,000 for administrative work.

Hacker group destroys 35 local web sites
In a simultaneous attack that lasted more than twenty hours, two hacker groups destroyed more than 35 South African websites on Sunday, 16 May 2004. A group called "r00t_System" defaced three websites by changing words or paragraphs on the home pages of the sites. Raylink.co.za, a website running on a Linux operating system, fell first at about 7:15. Thereafter, chelseaafc.co.za and frontiersoftware.co.za, operating from Linux systems and Apache web servers, were defaced at 10:43 and 20:49 respectively.

"Unlike most defacements where the hacker removes the website's whole home page and replaces it with his or her own content, those hacked by r00t_System only changed parts of the sites" says Reinhardt Buys of IT law firm Buys Inc.

Reference In Invoice Sufficient To Put Purchaser On Notice That Software Was Subject To License
A reference in an invoice for software directing a purchaser to "read the software license agreement ('license') carefully" is sufficient basis for a jury to find that the purchaser was aware of and accepted the terms of the license. I-Systems, Inc. v. Softwares, Inc., No. 02-1951 (D. Minn. March 29, 2004). The court rejected the purchaser's argument that it was unaware of the license, which was installed along with the software in a file containing a statement that use of the software constituted acceptance of the license terms. The court also noted that a series of transactions between the same parties included a prior negotiated software development agreement that made it clear that the purchaser did not own the software, and a subsequent click-wrap license accompanying a software update required acceptance upon installation of the software.

German Court Requires Software Developer to Comply With Open Source License
A German software developer has been ordered to comply with the requirements of the GNU General Public License by providing source code and a copy of the GNU license terms to distributees of its software. Welte v. Site-com Germany GmbH, No. 21 O 6123/04 (Landgericht Meunchen, April 2, 2004). The developer's wireless access router product was based on code developed by the open source Netfilter Project to enable packet filtering, network address and port translation and other packet routing functions.

Maintenance of Critical Web Site Under Domains Containing Other Party's Trademark Does Not Violate Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act
The purpose of the fourth "bad faith" factor enumerated by the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) - whether the defendant made a "bona fide noncommercial or fair use" of a trademark - was intended by Congress to protect "activities such as critical commentary." Mayflower Transit, LLC v. Prince, No. 00-5354 (JLL) (D. N.J. March 30, 2004). The court ruled that the fourth bad faith factor should be considered together with the ACPA "safe harbor" language that precludes a finding of bad faith where "the court determines that the person believed and had reasonable grounds to believe that the use of the domain name was a fair use or otherwise lawful." The court concluded that the totality of circumstances showed that the defendant's purpose in registering domain names containing the plaintiff's trademarks was to express dissatisfaction as a customer of the plaintiff and its related entities. The court agreed with the recent 6th Circuit decision in Lucas Nursery & Landscaping v. Grosse, that the defendant was not within the class of "cyber-squatters" that Congress intended to reach in enacting the ACPA.

Use of Trademark In Non-Commercial Gripe Site Domain Name Does Not Violate Trademark Statutes
The registration and use an allegedly infringing domain name on a "non-commercial gripe site" does not violate federal or state trademark statutes. TMI Inc. v. Maxwell, No. 03-20243, No. 03-20291 (5th Cir. April 21, 2004). The Circuit Court held that both the federal Lanham Act and the federal Trademark Anti-Dilution Act require a showing of commercial use in order to sustain an action for infringement. Commercial use was not shown, the court concluded, because the gripe site operator did not charge for the use of his site, did not include advertising nor links to other commercial sites, and was not attempting to sell the domain name. The court also found that the "bad faith intent to profit" required under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) had not been shown. The court agreed with the recent 6th Circuit decision in Lucas Nursery & Landscaping v. Grosse, that a gripe site's use of a domain name to inform other consumers of one's experience with a service provider is not the type of conduct intended to be prevented under the ACPA.

Trademark Registration Does Not Present Issue of Material Fact Precluding Summary Judgment On Genericness of Trademark
A District Court's grant of summary judgment on the issue of non-infringement of a trademark by a domain name registrant was proper where the court found that the claimed trademark was generic as a matter of law. Retail Services v. Freebies Publishing, No. 03-1272, No. 03-1317 (4th Cir. April 13, 2004). The Circuit Court concluded that summary judgment was proper even though the trademark owner held a U.S. registration for the claimed trademark. The Circuit Court upheld the trial court's conclusion that the existence of the trademark registration did not present an issue of material fact precluding summary judgment, even though the Lanham Act provides that the issuance of a certificate of registration of a mark constituted "prima facie evidence of the validity of the registered mark."

Internet Service Provider Lacks Standing to Challenge Constitutionality of Takedown Notice Procedure
An Internet service provider lacks standing to maintain an action seeking a declaratory judgment that the takedown provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) are unconstitutional. Fatwallet, Inc. v. Best Buy Enterprise Services, Inc., No. 03 50508 (N.D. Ill. April 12, 2004). The court concluded that standing was lacking because the ISP would suffer no harm by refusing to comply with a takedown notice that would be additional to any harm it might already suffer irrespective of the DMCA. The court suggested that the posters of information subject to the takedown notices had the proper standing to challenge the law.

Copying and Momentary Retention of Web Site Pages Does Not Constitute Copyright Infringement
A rival yacht broker's copying and momentary retention of HTML-coded Web pages maintained by a competitor in order to extract sales listings embodied in the pages is protected by the fair use doctrine. Nautical Solutions Marketing, Inc. v. Boat.com, N0. 8:02-cv-760-T-23TGW (M.D. Fla. April 1, 2004). The court granted the rival yacht broker's request for a declaratory judgment of non-infringement, also concluding that the copying and posting of the sales listings themselves on the rival broker's Web site did not constitute copyright infringement, because the listings consisted of photographs and descriptions that were owned by the sellers of the yachts and not the competitor. The court also rejected the argument that the competitor had a protectible interest in the headings used in the listings and in the compilation of the listings.

Fair Use Defense Not Precluded By Alleged Infringer's Bad Faith
An Internet critic's use of extensive quotations from copyrighted materials obtained at a training seminar were protected by the fair use doctrine, even if the materials were obtained in violation of a nondisclosure agreement. NXIVM Corporation v. The Ross Institute, No. 03-7952 (2d. Cir. April 20, 2004). The Circuit Court upheld the lower court's refusal to issue a preliminary injunction against the posting of the quotations, finding that there was no likelihood that the copyright owner could overcome the critic's fair use defense. The court concluded that the fair use defense was not completely precluded by the critic's bad faith conduct in obtaining the materials, and that the critic's bad faith was mitigated by the transformative use of the materials for the purpose of criticism. In a concurring opinion, Judge Jacobs agreed that the critic's use fell under the fair use doctrine, but stated that his view is that the critic's bad faith was irrelevant to the fair use analysis, commenting that publication of critical works should not be "inhibited by a publisher's anxiety or uncertainty about an author's ethics if his secondary work is transformative."

Sunday, May 16, 2004
 
  Longhorn goes to pieces
Bill Gates' dream of an end-to-end search tool for corporate networks remains just that: a dream, at least until the end of the decade. Advanced search features that Gates has termed the "Holy Grail" of Longhorn, the next major version of Windows, won't be fully in place until 2009, Bob Muglia, the senior vice president in charge of Windows server development, told CNET News.com.

Microsoft shares Windows tools via open source
Microsoft this week released into the open-source community a series of pre-existing templates designed to simplify the writing of Windows programs--making it possible for developers to freely modify the templates. On Tuesday night, the company posted to SourceForge its Windows Template Library, a series of code snippits designed to make it easier for developers to create graphic interfaces for Windows programs. The templates have been freely available for five years from Microsoft's developer site.

Can the Good Guys Win the Phishing Wars?
Phishing -- a tactic in which fraudulent email directs users to a malicious Web site that masquerades as a site belonging to a legitimate company, such as a credit card firm or bank, while stealing users' personal data -- is unquestionably on the rise. A recent Gartner report noted that in the past year, approximately 57 million adults received a phishing e-mail. Worse, 11 million of those recipients clicked on the links in that e-mail. With organized crime getting involved and sophisticated software tools in use to carry out malicious tactics, phishing is easier than ever and is threatening consumer confidence.

Mac Trojan Masquerades as MS Word Installer
A new Trojan horse, created just for Mac OS X , has been discovered in the wild.
Earlier this week, Macworld UK reported that one of its readers downloaded from LimeWire what looked to be an installer for a demo version of Microsoft Word 2004 for Macintosh , part of Microsoft's soon-to-be-released Office 2004. However, when the reader double-clicked the file, it erased everything in his home folder.

Brian Davis, U.S. sales manager at Intego, a provider of Internet security and privacy software for the Mac, said in an interview Thursday that copies of this Trojan horse have been located on peer-to-peer networks LimeWire and Gnutella, adding that Intego did not know the number of other users infected by this piece of malware.

A Trend Maker in Cybersquatting Law?
Practically every company with a public profile worth mentioning also has to live with its own "sucks" website (i.e., www.[yourcompany]sucks.com) devoted to complaining about its products or services. But what if the complainers manage to register your company's name before you do? Then the complaints will all be compiled at www.[yourcompany].com or some similar name. Surely that is trademark infringement or, or, well, something illegal? Actually, it's not, at least according to the Fifth Circuit in TMI Inc. v. Maxwell.

There are two intriguing aspects to this case. The first is the decision itself, which is more hostile to the trademark owner than these kinds of cases tend to be. The second is the group standing behind the complainer in this appeal: Public Citizen, the consumer advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader. With Public Citizen crusading against companies that pursue trademark remedies in online disputes, the potential cost of protecting corporate trademarks may be going up.

Online Music Prices Going Up
The cost of a legitimate music download is going up. Way up, in some cases.
Album prices are rising at all the services, including Apple's iTunes Music Store and the revived Napster. Many titles sell for $13.95 and higher, up from a standard $9.99.
Singles had been a nearly universal 99 cents. But at Sony's new Connect, tracks longer than a standard pop tune are priced from $1.99 to $5.99. Adding to the confusion: Many releases are sold as "single song" purchases only, so consumers lose discount pricing for a one-click album purchase.

US Congress Considers DMCA, Consumer Copying
This week's U.S. congressional hearing on the loosening of DVD and other copying restrictions based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 might signal a change in attitude toward laws that have been the basis of infringement suits against companies and consumers. Some, including lawmakers on the U.S. Congressional Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, view the ability to make backup and mixed copies of copyrighted music, movies and other media as fair use, provided consumers are not selling or distributing their homemade digital copies.

Five More Under Investigation over Sasser Virus
Five more persons are under investigation in Germany on suspicion of releasing the predecessor to the Sasser computer virus onto the Internet, public prosecutor Helmut Trentmann said Thursday. Trentmann has headed an inquiry that began a week ago with the arrest of Sven Jaschan, 18, who confessed Friday night to devising Sasser and said it was based on a virus he devised called Netsky, which preceded Sasser's worldwide spread late last month.

Interesting SA stats
Visit the statistical maps of Stats SA by clicking on the title.

Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act 53 of 2003
Commencement date : 21 April 2004
PR 26/GG 26285/21-04-2004

Comparex to delist in June
The Comparex share is to be delisted on 1 June ahead of the company's relisting as Business Connexion.The group has told shareholders that the last of the conditions relating to its merger with Business Connexion and the related restructuring has been fulfilled. The restructuring is taking place on the structural rather than operational level, with the exercise aimed at eliminating unnecessary layers in the group structure, to simplify the financial reporting and to allow for the efficient distribution of surplus cash.

Who pays tax for contract workers?
'Ms Smith" runs "Smith's Secretarial Services" from home as a sole proprietor. She invoices clients at the end of each month and is paid a fee for every 100 words. Company X tells her its accountants has advised it must deduct tax from her fee, whereas other businesses have been happy to pay her without deduction.

Which is correct? Contractors rendering services as individual sole proprietors, may be subject to employees' tax, since tax must be withheld where an "employer" pays "remuneration" to an "employee". So, do payments made to Smith constitute "remuneration" from which employees' tax should be withheld?

Court spat as porn channel does cause panic
MultiChoice was granted permission by the Pretoria High Court to intervene in a forthcoming legal battle between a television channel apparently broadcasting hardcore pornography and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).

The channel, called Don't Panic, allegedly beams explicit sexual material to subscribers. At R2 000 for a smart card and by using a normal DStv decoder, viewers can tune in 24 hours a day. MultiChoice's chief executive officer, Lehlohonolo Letele, said in court papers that Otherchoice, a Centurion company which distributes smartcards to be used in digital decoders, assists Don't Panic in broadcasting "a pornographic digital subscription TV services to South Africans in contravention of the broadcasting legislation".

Microsoft readies XP update
LONDON Ñ Microsoft says it will give away Service Pack 2 for Windows XP but is remaining coy about the exact nature of what wags are calling "XP Reloaded." At a reviewers' workshop In London on Monday, Microsoft revealed more information about its plans for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), which is currently available for download as a 200MB Release Candidate 1.

Illicit cellphone photos of girlfriend land man in jail
SUDBURY, ONT. Ñ A 20-year-old computer whiz from Northern Ontario was convicted yesterday of a new -- and decidedly creepy -- crime. Matthew Kalijarvi was sentenced to half a year in jail after being found guilty of surreptitiously using his cellphone's digital camera to take nude pictures of his 17-year-old girlfriend and posting those images on his website for anyone with an Internet connection to see.

Mounties to fight abuse on Net
OTTAWA Ñ The federal government will spend an extra $42-million over five years to help the Mounties fight internet-based child exploitation. The money will expand the RCMP's national co-ordination centre and provide law enforcement with better tools and resources to investigate such crimes, said Anne McLellan, the minister of public safety.

Google Does About-Face on Banner Ads
Taking its AdSense program in a new direction that could inject a breath of fresh air a traditional Internet-advertising style, Google has said it will begin testing banner ads. The move comes as a surprise because Google's AdSense, which places ads based on the Web page content with which they appear, has relied exclusively on small text advertisements in the past.

Website Showing Beheading Shut Down for Too Much Traffic
The al-Qaida-linked Web site that first posted a video of American civilian Nicholas Berg's beheading was shut down by the Malaysian company that hosted it -- because it was drawing too much traffic. A senior officer of the company, Acme Commerce Sdn. Bhd., said it was not aware that the site, www.al-ansar.biz, may have been connected to al-Qaida or that offensive material had been posted on it.

Search engines take the stand
Fifteen years after his trial, a convicted drug dealer in New York state belatedly got a chance to clear his name--thanks in part to an Internet search. A federal judge last November threw out Manuel Rodriguez's conviction and granted him a new trial after discovering evidence of potential jury tampering in a review of court records and queries on Web search engine Google. U.S. Magistrate Judge Frank Maas said that his review of the 1988 court transcript, coupled with looking up jurors' names in Google, had revealed that the assistant district attorney had "improperly" removed Hispanics.

Net Pirates Show Passion for Mel Gibson Film
Mel Gibson's box office smash "The Passion of the Christ" broke the ignominious record as the most-pirated movie on Internet file-sharing networks in April, an online piracy tracking firm said Wednesday. The movie may have slipped out of the box office top 10 in recent weeks, but its popularity among Internet users looking to score a free copy has reached a new fervor.

According to California-based BayTSP, 36,693 copies of "The Passion" were circulating on Internet file-sharing networks such as Kazaa and eDonkey. Universal Studio's "21 Grams" came in second with 32,035 pirated copies.

Yet Another Sasser Worm Appears
A new version of the Sasser Internet worm, Sasser-F, appeared on Monday, despite claims by German authorities to have arrested the sole author of that worm on Friday.
Antivirus software companies issued warnings about the new worm, which one antivirus expert called a crude adaptation that was unlikely to spread widely. The discovery, more than three days after German authorities arrested an 18-year-old German man for creating Sasser, suggests that the worm's code is circulating on the Internet and raises the specter of more Sasser versions, experts said.

'Rented' Music May Be the Next Step in Downloading
We rent homes. We rent cars. We rent movies. Why not rent music? It might be a very good deal. We now have more options than ever for buying music -- we can purchase CDs from Web sites and stores and download music from online services. All that is now fairly routine for many entertainment consumers: You go to a site such as Apple's iTunes store or the new Napster and pay around 99 cents for an individual song, which you can store and play on your computer, or burn to a CD and transfer to a portable music device a certain number of times.

DoD Issues Wireless Defense Orders
After two years of internal policy debate, the U.S. Department of Defense last week issued rules that all branches of the military -- as well as contractors and visitors -- must follow to secure commercial wireless equipment and services. In particular, wireless LANs have raised Defense Department concerns because unencrypted traffic easily is intercepted through over-the-air "sniffing." The Defense Department's Directive 8100.2 requires any new military purchases of wireless equipment and services for unclassified data to use encryption.

The encryption has to have gone through the National Institute of Standards (NIST) and Technology's Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 cryptographic validation program. The Pentagon which left room for exceptions on a case -by-case basis -- also called the encryption of unclassified voice traffic "desirable."

Banks must move to ID clients
Johannesburg - If banks cannot identify their clients before June 30 they have until the end of the week to apply for an extension, the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) said on Wednesday. Banks can petition Finance Minister Trevor Manuel for an exemption in terms of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act. The Act, introduced in November 2001, gave banks until June 30 to comply with "know your client" provisions. These require banks to establish and verify the identities of clients.

EBay CEO Slams Net Tax Proposal
Small businesses are the true success stories of the Internet revolution, and further attempts to level broad taxes on Web sales and access would harm the ability of entrepreneurs to compete, according to eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman. Whitman used a high-profile speech before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to urge lawmakers to steer clear of any new online taxes. While eBay, Yahoo, Google and Amazon make the most headlines, the Internet is the "best place on earth to start a small business," she argued.

In Privacy Law, One Size Fits None
In the face of today's attacks on computer information, we should expect legislators to enact laws to protect our privacy . However, any law that fails to recognize three things -- who owns a computer, who uses it and for what purposes -- is unlikely to fit the privacy needs of both corporate and individual PC owners.

Think of your home computer. Its hard drive is likely to contain personal information, such as your name, address, phone number, credit card numbers, Social Security number, favorite Web sites, e-commerce purchase history and personal photos. If that data were to fall into the wrong hands, you could become the victim of identity theft, lose thousands of dollars, find your credit rating in jeopardy, be targeted by con artists or worse.

Lawyers in Microsoft Calif. Settlement Seek $258 Million in Fees
Lawyers who persuaded Microsoft Corp. to settle their class-action lawsuit accusing the company of price-fixing are asking for $258 million in legal fees, the largest amount ever in an antitrust case. Microsoft agreed to the settlement -- allocating $1.1 billion for California consumers -- after a small San Francisco law firm sued in state court alleging the company inflated prices by monopolizing the pre-installed
software market from 1995 to 2001.

No ruling yet on Novell-SCO suit dismissal
After hearing arguments Tuesday, Federal Judge Dale Kimball said he'd rule later on a Novell motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the SCO Group alleging slander of title in connection with ownership of Unix copyrights. The case is crucial to SCO lawsuits that argue Linux infringes Unix copyrights.

L.A. man sentenced for huge online credit-card porn fraud
A man who bilked $37.5 million out of about 900,000 credit card owners by signing them up for pornographic Web sites has been sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison, officials said. Kenneth H. Taves, 52, of Malibu, also was ordered Monday to pay full restitution for the scheme that prosecutors call the largest Internet fraud in history to result in a conviction.

British Police Arrest 13 Suspected of Child Porn
British police arrested 13 people on Tuesday suspected of downloading and distributing child pornography over the Internet, in raids across London involving 100 officers. The sting was part of a continuing crackdown on pedophilia that has led to more than 3,500 arrests in Britain since the 2002 launch of "Operation Ore."

"We will continue to take action where we have intelligence that indicates that a person presents a threat to children through physical or sexual abuse," said Matthew Sarti from Scotland Yard's Child Protection Command.

Despite Arrest, New Variant of Sasser Worm Appears
Despite the arrest Friday of the suspected author of the Sasser worm which affected millions of computers worldwide last week, a new variant of the worm appeared Sunday, according to computer security organizations. This shows that there is an "organized group of delinquents" engaged in creating and distributing these worms, security specialist Panda Software SL's PandaLabs unit said in a statement

Xbox May Get More Firepower
Microsoft Corp. stepped up its battle against Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 2 last night with a deal meant to give its Xbox Live service more firepower in the competition for online gamers. Ending a stalemate, the Redmond company and Electronic Arts Inc. announced an agreement to bring EA's popular sports games and other titles to Microsoft's online gaming platform beginning this summer.

The two companies had previously been unable come to financial terms. Although EA Sports titles are available for offline play on Microsoft's Xbox, Sony's console has enjoyed exclusive online rights to the games, including the Madden NFL series, EA's top online sports title and one of the top sellers in video-game history.

Virus Arrests Continue, As Do Worms
A series of arrests in Germany for alleged computer virus creation is likely to deter casual virus writers, but worms and variants continue and the most hardened computer criminals will probably be more careful, not quelled by the arrests, according to security experts.

The biggest arrest came last Friday when Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) announced it had worked through its virus-writer reward program to assist German authorities in apprehending an 18-year-old suspect who has since confessed to writing the Sasser and series of Netsky worms. Another separate arrest in Germany involved the smaller Agobot worm. While officials indicated the arrests were not related, virus fighters and security experts agreed that one virus writer's arrest can often lead to others.

Pirates and Hackers Roam in the Internet's Wild West
It was just another Wednesday on the sprawling Internet chat room network called IRC. In a room called Prime-Tyme-Movies, users offered free pirated downloads of The Passion of the Christ and Kill Bill Vol. 2. In the DDO-Matrix channel, illegal copies of Microsoft's Windows and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, an Xbox game, were ripe for downloading. In other chat rooms, whole albums of free MP3s were hawked with blaring capital letters. And in a far less obtrusive channel, an anonymous user may well have been checking his progress of hacking into the computers of unsuspecting Internet surfers.

Microsoft warns of 'important' Windows flaw
A flaw in Microsoft's almost universally used Windows operating system could allow hackers to take control of a PC by luring users to a malicious Web site and coaxing them into clicking on a link, the company warned yesterday.

The world's largest software maker issued the warning as part of its monthly security bulletin, along with a patch to fix the problem. The security warning was rated "important", the second most serious on Microsoft's four-tiered rating scale for computer security threats. The highest is "critical".

Man jailed in US for largest internet fraud case
A Californian who bilked a record $US37.5 million ($A54.15 million) out of about 900,000 credit card owners by signing them up for pornographic websites has been sentenced to more than 11 years in a US prison. Much of the money was placed in banks in Vanuatu.

Kenneth Taves, 52, was also ordered today to pay full restitution for the scheme that prosecutors call the largest internet fraud in history to result in a conviction. Victims would receive at least some money back through credits to their accounts, Assistant US Attorney Brent Whittlesey said in Los Angeles.

Hidden problems in protecting your trademark
The English Court of AppealÕs decision on the trademark dispute between Reed Executive plc and Reed Business Information Ltd, is a triumph for common sense but does little to clarify the vexed issue of metatagging company names for websites.

The judgment in favour of RBI related to that companyÕs "totaljobs.com" website. Sometime ago RBI moved into the online recruitment market using its totaljobs.com website vehicle. Reed Executive, a recruitment agency, owns the registered trademark "Reed" for employment agency services. Both Reed Executive and RBI are well known names. Despite occasional confusion, both had managed to co-exist.

Under the Radar: IM Emerging as a Stealth Threat
Instant messaging has moved out of your kid's bedroom and into the office next door. And this could spell trouble for your network security administrator. First, though, they have to know it's there -- and many don't. Although not nearly as pervasive as email or Web browsers, instant messaging (IM) is becoming more and more popular in the corporate world. Yet most IT managers have no idea how widespread IM is within their organizations. And this is a problem -- specifically, a security problem.

Viruses Target IM
When it comes to viruses and worms, e-mail gets all the attention--but now that instant messaging has infiltrated both home and office, it too has become an attractive and easy target for virus writers. From 2002 to 2003, worms and viruses that spread via IM and peer-to-peer networks increased 400 percent, according to Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report. Already this year, we've seen the Jitux.A and Bizex worms targeting MSN Messenger and ICQ, respectively.

Door not yet closed on multinationals
While there has been much debate over the possibility of no exclusions in the ICT black economic empowerment (BEE) charter, the issue of equity ownership is still wide open and has yet to be resolved.

Speaking at the launch of the third draft yesterday, Dali Mpofu, chairman of the empowerment charter working group, said the majority of the sector believed there should be no exclusions in the equity ownership debate. While this means multinationals may not be exempted on the equity ownership issue, the third draft states that the working group has not taken a stance on this issue and is working towards a solution.

No BEE exclusions for multinationals
The ICT empowerment charter working group has released its third draft of the charter, this time containing long-awaited targets for black economic empowerment (BEE) in the industry. Key recommendations include that multinationals not be excluded from equity ownership targets, and that preferential procurement have a higher weighting than on the government's scorecard for all industry.

Comms dept to sort out SNO first
Sorting out the stalled second national operator (SNO) process will probably be the first priority of the Department of Communications, followed by the Convergence Bill, a senior manager in the department has said.

Envir Fraser, senior manager for e-business in the Department of Communications, made the comment at a meeting of the Western Cape branch of the Internet Society last night.

"Right now the main priority of the department is to ensure the SNO issue is sorted out so we will probably only see the draft of the Convergence Bill going before Parliament late this year," Fraser said.

Practical Open Source Corporate Policies
What is the safest advice an intellectual property attorney can give clients concerned about potential litigation? "Do absolutely nothing." The truth is that making or selling any products might get you sued for patent infringement. Advertising might get you sued for trademark infringement. And don't connect your computers to the Internet, because employees might download copyrighted materials improperly.

Thursday, May 13, 2004
 
  IT can boost nursing
[Cape Town | ITWeb, 13 May 2004] - IT can be used to boost patient care, save lives and help alleviate SA's critical nursing shortage, says Lorna Powe, head of healthcare solutions at the Computer Sciences Corporation in SA.

Powe told the Nursing 2004 Conference in Sandton yesterday that the South African nursing sector was examining ways in which IT can ease the nursing staff shortage and allow nurses more time to do what they do best Ð caring for patients.

Viruses Target IM
When it comes to viruses and worms, e-mail gets all the attention--but now that instant messaging has infiltrated both home and office, it too has become an attractive and easy target for virus writers.
From 2002 to 2003, worms and viruses that spread via IM and peer-to-peer networks increased 400 percent, according to Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report. Already this year, we've seen the Jitux.A and Bizex worms targeting MSN Messenger and ICQ, respectively.

ÒIM is not the first and will definitely not be the last that could cause serious risks and liabilities in an organization. Buys Inc. acted accordingly and has now updated all relevant policies to reflect the acceptable / unacceptable usage of IM within the working environment. If you feel that your company policies do not reflect the latest risks or provisions to mitigate those risks, then please feel free to contact us at our Johannesburg or Cape Town offices for further assistanceÓ.

Study Says U.S. Should Reopen Some Web Sites
Federal officials should consider reopening public access to about three dozen Web sites withdrawn from the Internet after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a government-financed study says, because the sites pose little or no risk to homeland security.

'P2P' Firms Join Child-Porn Fight
Online file-sharing networks, used by millions of consumers to trade digital music, videos, games and software, are beginning to work with law enforcement to crack down on child-pornography purveyors who use their systems.


New worm threat
[Johannesburg, 12 May 2004] - No sooner has the alleged author of Sasser worm confessed than a new Internet worm threat has emerged.
F-Secure has issued a Radar Level 2 alert about the new Wallon worm, which is spreading mostly in Europe.
It does not arrive in an attachment, but in an HTML-based message containing a link to a site that downloads and runs the worm's components. In order to spoof the original Web location, F-Secure says it uses the Yahoo redirection service.

Multinationals call for more time on BEE
[Johannesburg, 13 May 2004] - As the process of formulating the black economic empowerment (BEE) ICT charter draws to a close, some multinationals have called for more time to discuss the relevant issues and a return to the principles of BEE.
The issue of equity ownership re-surfaced after the third draft of the charter, which includes BEE targets, was released on Monday.

Tuesday, May 11, 2004
 
  FSB goes digital
[Johannesburg, 10 May 2004] - The Financial Services Board (FSB) is the first regulatory agency in SA able to receive digital financial reports with minimal human intervention, says accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
PwC has for some time been touting the business value of Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). The group has for the past year-and-a-half been involved in implementing the South African XBRL Retirement Fund Digital Supply Chain Initiative, on which it has published a case study.

Shuttleworth promotes OSS to masses
[Johannesburg, 10 May 2004] - South African Internet millionaire Mark Shuttleworth and his foundation have teamed up with HP and the CSIR in an R18 million campaign to promote open source software (OSS) to the masses.

Monday, May 10, 2004
 
  Microsoft reward snags suspected Sasser author
Microsoft's $5 million fund for rewarding informants for leads on virus attacks has snagged its first success with the arrest of a man in Germany who has confessed to the release of the Sasser worm, the software giant said Saturday.

In what the company called a "coordinated multinational law enforcement effort," information provided to Microsoft by informants led local authorities to arrest the 18-year-old unnamed resident of Rotenburg, Germany, only a week after the original Sasser virus had been released.



Illegal film downloading triples
The number of internet users who illegally download films and TV series has tripled over the past year.
An estimated 1.67 million people download illegal film or TV files, compared to 570,000 last year, the British Video Association (BVA) found.

The loss to the British video industry was calculated to be £45m in DVD sales alone during 2003.

Friday, May 07, 2004
 
  Gartner: Phishing on the Rise
Phishing is a tactic used to get credit card information from consumers who believe they are visiting legitimate bank and credit card sites. Usually accomplished through use of pop-up windows that piggyback on real sites, phishing has been on the scene for some time, but recent attacks have underscored how easily attackers can get hold of personal information .

German Firm Vows to take Google to Court
German meta search company metaspinner media accused Google of failing to comply with a preliminary injunction issued in Hamburg district court, as the search giant's trademark-related legal woes continue.

China shuts more than 8,600 Net cafes for letting in minors
BEIJING (AP) — China has shut down more than 8,600 Internet cafes since February, many of them for illegally admitting juveniles, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday.

"Any such place allowing juveniles to enter or allowing unhealthy information to spread through the Internet will face rigid, severe penalty," Xinhua said.

U.S. hit by rise in 'phishing' attacks
An estimated one in five Americans were the target of a "phishing" attack in the past year, as the number of such Internet scams rose dramatically, according to a study released on Thursday.

Projecting from the results of the survey of 5,000 wired adults, research firm Gartner suggests that 57 million consumers in the United States definitely received or suspect they received a phishing e-mail.

Security Lessons Learned from 'Sasser'
Tooling around the Internet may have been a little slow for you this week. That's because a fast spreading worm called "Sasser" has been winding its way around the global computer network.

The worm took advantage of a flaw in Microsoft's Windows software first discovered in October. And even though Microsoft released a patch, or fix, for the defect on April 13, Sasser spread quickly. Since its discovery on April 30, Sasser is believed to have infected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide.

Wireless PDAs and Smartphones: A Hacker's Heaven
A real security threat is looming with wireless PDAs , WiFi devices and smartphones . These are the electronic marvels that are pushing the goal of wireless telecommunications to new limits. Industry watchers report that people are dropping their older PDAs like hot potatoes and snapping up the latest generation of wireless devices like crazy.

Wednesday, May 05, 2004
 
  The Internet Is Losing the Battle Against E-Mail Bombing
The bombardment is eroding the Internet's usefulness. As office workers and consumers set about the task of wading through scores of useless e-mail messages each day, the so-called productivity gains of the Web are sapped.

No Net Taxes? Why Not?
Over the past month, President Bush and likely Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) both vowed to do whatever it takes to make broadband universally accessible throughout the U.S. Bush even set a deadline of 2007. And on Apr. 29, the Senate moved to bar states from taxing Internet access, including broadband services, for the next four years. The House version of the measure would permanently bar states from taxing access.

Tuesday, May 04, 2004
 
  Welcome to the Buys Inc. IT law blog
Now you don't have to wait for our weekly newsletter to see our collection of the week's top IT law issues... here you can post comments on a topic and share in discussion forums - from anywhere in the world, at any time.

This blog will be updated twice a day to ensure that you have access to the hottest breaking news - as and when it happens. Although news items for this blog are collected from a number of international IT and legal sources, the focus will always be South African. Buys Inc. will continue to distribute our weekly PDF newsletter... with more links and "the story behind the story". Our RSS newsletter feed will be up and running soon.

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Court zaps racist mailer
It is becoming increasingly expensive to be racist, as a Lephalale, Limpopo, man has discovered. The Equality Court has ordered Andrew van der Westhuizen to pay his colleague Elliot Senwamadi, at Nashua in Lephalale (formerly known as Ellisrus), R10 000 after Van der Westhuizen shared an e-mail “recipe” with fellow staff members on how to “create black people”.

According to the e-mail, written in Afrikaans, one needs “a wheelbarrow of water, a wheelbarrow of mud and a wheelbarrow of faeces. “Mix everything well together and make a form you desire. Place it in the sun and wait until it has dried up. WARNING: You must not add a lot of the faeces because you will get a Gauteng Lions [rugby] supporter.”

SASSER WORM HELPDESK
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Sasser worm spreading quickly
(CNN) -- Computer security experts are dealing with at least four variants of a worm that is spreading quickly through Windows operating systems.

Known as SasserA, SasserB, SasserC and SasserD, the worm is targeting Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 2000 and 2003 servers. Other Windows systems, including Windows 95, 98 and ME, could be indirectly affected.

Woman charged with breaking into former beau's e-mail
CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — She claims her ex-boyfriend gave his e-mail password to her. He alleges she looked over his shoulder. Either way, Lori Osman used the password to look at David Pope's e-mail, authorities say, and was charged with a felony for doing so in a unique case that experts say could be Wyoming's first.

Microsoft unveils new antipiracy tools
Microsoft has released details of a long-delayed update to its content protection technology, offering new features aimed at bringing piracy-proof digital content to mobile devices and home networks.

Originally expected as long as a year ago, the technology--internally code-named Janus--has been seen as a potential way to let subscription music services such as Napster and RealNetworks' Rhapsody move to portable MP3 players. Those services, which allow subscribers to listen to unlimited amounts of music in return for a single monthly fee, are typically tied to PCs today.

Challenge to Ban on Internet Gambling Upheld
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tiny Antigua and Barbuda have successfully challenged a U.S. ban on Internet gambling, diplomatic sources said on Friday, dealing the United States another setback at the World Trade Organization. A U.S. trade official, speaking on condition that she not be identified, confirmed that a WTO panel had issued a final report that was "largely unchanged" from its preliminary ruling against the U.S. ban one month ago.

Computer Attacks on UK Businesses Double
Computer attacks on UK businesses have doubled in the last two years, according to research from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
In its Information Security Breaches Survey, unveiled at the Infosecurity 2004 show, the DTI found businesses more vulnerable than during the last survey in 2002.

The research found that large companies are attacked at least once a week, with the average company receiving one attack every month.

SA money-laundering laws not up to scratch
The Financial Action Task Force a global body aimed at stamping out money laundering has found glaring holes in South African legislation to address the problem.

A report compiled by the task force and published by the International Monetary Fund on Friday said SA was mainly deficient in laws governing "beneficial ownership", which limited identification of the "true owner" of property. The Financial Intelligence Centre Act requires a financial institution to verify the client, but there was no general duty to identify the beneficial owner, says the report.

9th Circuit to Rehear Internet Jurisdiction Case
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will reconsider a ruling from last year allowing an East Coast business to be sued in California, even though it has no stores there.

The jurisdictional hook, a three-judge panel held, was Maine retailer L.L. Bean's Web site, which the company uses to sell its wares worldwide.

Thursday's decision to take the case en banc was closely watched by practitioners in the still-developing realm of e-commerce law. The outcome will help settle disputes involving the myriad companies that post catalogs on the Internet and sell their products all over the world.

Company admits handling child-porn credit card payments
NEWARK, N.J. — A Florida company pleaded guilty Monday to processing credit card payments for an international child pornography ring, and agreed to forfeit $1.1 million and dissolve its business.

The company, Connections USA, was indicted in January in a money-laundering scheme along with a Belarus company, Regpay, which was charged with processing paid memberships to about 50 pornography Web sites.

 

 

 

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