Alex Goldman

NEW YORK — While cyber criminals continue to innovate, the Feds say they are catching up. That’s the message from the Symantec Norton Cyber Crime day here, where two agents spoke. “The government is closing the gap. We used to be six months behind; now we’re a couple of days behind,” said Austin Berglas, cyber […]

NEW YORK — Experts from security firm Symantec (NASDAQ:SYMC) warned that USB drives are a real security threat to enterprise networks. The comments came in the opening speech at Symantec Norton Cyber Crime day here. In this case, an old threat is new again, according to Kevin Haley, Symantec Security Response group product manager. He […]

The recent outing on Facebook of the new head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, may not have all the makings of a spy thriller. But the blunder still has security observers in an uproar — and critics pointing fingers at both the new spy chief, Sir John Sawers, and at the popular […]

NEW YORK — A panel at the Personal Democracy Forum 2009 on how the Internet has changed journalism and featuring such luminaries as Frank Rich and Scott Simon almost entirely ignored technology and discussed mere incremental change — at a time when other organizations are preaching disruption. Of course, the Internet is a convenience. “The […]

While many businesses might be expected to be cutting spending and hoarding cash, a new study sponsored by IBM found that almost half of small to midsized businesses (SMBs) around the world are investing in the future. “We were actually a bit surprised at the levels of focus on expansion and growth that came through […]

NEW YORK — Introduced as a man without a title, Blair Levin, coordinator of the FCC’s national broadband plan, asked attendees at the Personal Democracy Forum 2009 to participate in the process that will define the plan. But first, he reminded the audience of his ties to the FCC. “I want to be one of […]

Enterprise software makers are focusing more on ease of use with their recent releases, an element usually associated with video games and mobile devices than in complex enterprise software products. Recently, SAP (NYSE:SAP), known for detail-oriented and meticulous software, attempted to break out of that mold by releasing a natural language search engine for its […]

In its quarterly threat update, security company F-Secure warned that many known vulnerabilities remain unpatched, and flaws in popular Adobe software are at the top of that list. Despite the availability of patches to fix security holes, “statistics from our Health Check application show that during the month of May, one in three computers scanned […]

NEW YORK — Micah Sifry, the co-chair and co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum 2009, said that the rise of Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com demonstrates how the Internet can make celebrities and can make them fast. “The site didn’t exist a year ago,” he said at the Forum. “Silver was blogging as Poblano on Daily […]

NEW YORK — In a speech to a receptive audience at the Personal Democracy Forum 2009, Danah Boyd, an ethnographer who works at Microsoft Research New England and at the Harvard Berkman Center for the Internet, said that many within the technology industry and the Internet industry believe, erroneously, that technology always delivers democracy in […]

While the release of Fusion Middleware 11g is the big news today, the company has recently released other products as well. Earlier this week, Oracle released a new security feature for databases called Transparent Data Encryption that is designed to make it easier to encrypt data. “Being able to encrypt all application data efficiently is […]

Oracle today unveiled the latest version of its Fusion Middleware, version 11g, a major release in Oracle’s most profitable software line. “It has significant new capabilities across all product lines,” said Hasan Rizvi, Oracle (NADSAQ: ORCL) senior vice president for Fusion Middleware products, in an online press briefing with reporters ahead of the release. It […]