Brian McWilliams

Online traders using E*Trade.com open themselves to major risks, according to a self-appointed Internet security watch dog. Flaws in the E*Trade system make it possible for a remote third party to recover user names and plain-text passwords of any user, according to Jeffrey Baker, a San Francisco-based software developer who has discovered several JavaScript-related security […]

The US Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration has put out another request for comments (RFC) on how best to manage and administer the .US domain space. The new RFC follows a previous NTIA effort two years ago to kindle interest in the US ccTLD. But that initiative became derailed by controversy when the […]

The Arachne browser will never threaten Internet Explorer or Navigator for market share dominance. But a data-destroying programming error in the current version of the slim and fast browser for DOS and Linux systems certainly isn’t helping its popularity. In recent weeks, newsgroups have been buzzing with rumors that Arachne v1.66 contains a malicious virus. […]

A serious security flaw has been found in the Web-based email service from Critical Path Inc. The vulnerability potentially affects more than 22 million people, including users of webmail offerings from CompuServe, ICQ, AltaVista, Network Solutions, US West, and other customers of Critical Path’s outsourced webmail service. The security bug enables a malicious user to […]

This week marks the six-month anniversary of February’s denial of service attacks that paralyzed several high-profile Internet sites. While many system administrators have since beefed up their defenses to prevent such packet floods, a new survey reveals there are still tens of thousands of networks wide open. In the latest Internet scan by Project Gargimel, […]

Plagued by outages and security problems, Microsoft’s Hotmail service is making what some are calling a “bet the company” move. The free, Web-based email service is in the process of migrating its over 3,000 Web and mail servers from the FreeBSD operating system, to Microsoft’s recently released Windows 2000, the successor to Windows NT. Although […]

The battle is heating up for the No. 2 spot in the domain registration business. Network Solutions remains the dominant player in selling domains, with more than 2 million registrations last quarter. But there’s a catfight shaping up for second place. In the quarter ended June 30th, Bulkregister.com moved into the second spot, ahead of […]

It’s a lawsuit of Olympic proportions. The holders of 1,800 Web domains are being sued for cybersquatting on the property of three Olympic governing bodies. The US Olympic Committee, The International Olympic Committee, and the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic Winter Games of 2002 filed the suit, believed to be the largest cybersquatting […]

New accusations about “spyware” were leveled Friday — this time Netscape Communications finds itself at the center of the controversy. A class action lawsuit filed June 30th in a federal court in New York accuses Netscape and its parent company America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL) of electronically eavesdropping on communications between website operators and the visitors […]

America Online, Inc. is the latest Net crime victim to have the privacy of some of its 23 million members violated. While the extent of weekend damage is unknown, the knowledge of how to access security holes in America Online’s network is spreading quickly through Internet channels. While AOL members are assured at every point […]

According to rival instant messaging firms, America Online Inc., which dubs its company “the world’s largest interactive service,” is not interactive at all when it concerns instant messaging. America Online late Thursday unveiled its proposal for open instant messaging standards to the Internet Engineering Task Force, as originally requested from industry members in March. AOL’s […]

Last week, idrive.com sent a message to its 3 million members apologizing for recent problems accessing the free service. Idrive.com promises “infinite” storage space for mp3 files, photos, software, and games. But it informed users Thursday that it must implement a 150-megabyte limit on amount of data they download off the service to their computers […]