Brian McWilliams

iCraveTV.com late Friday lost a major round in its fight with Hollywood and the major TV networks when as a Pittsburgh federal judge ordered the company to at least temporarily pull its streaming broadcasts of several TV signals. The temporary restraining order issued by Judge Donald Ziegler was an initial victory for 10 U.S. motion […]

Responding to rising security concerns, Excite@Home will announce an agreement next week to provide personal firewall software to subscribers of its cable modem access service. @Home (ATHM) officials declined to provide specifics on the announcement. But Jay Rolls, vice president of network engineering, said the gesture was aimed at giving users peace of mind. “Even […]

In the wake of the CDuniverse break-in, which resulted in the theft of as many as 300,000 credit card numbers and other customer information by a Russian cracker using the nickname Maxus, two credit card companies have re-issued cards to all cardholders who have shopped at CDuniverse. Kathy Edwards, a spokesperson for Discover Financial Services, […]

The recent security breech at CDuniverse wasn’t the first time the company has put customer data at risk. As recently as late December, CDuniverse was including customer credit card numbers in the emails sent out confirming orders placed in its section at the Yahoo! Shopping site. According to copies of e-mail confirmations obtained by InternetNews, […]

Law enforcement officials may be closing in on Maxus, the Russian cracker who stole 300,000 credit card numbers from e-tailer CDuniverse last month and dispensed them for free to visitors of his Web site. Since news of his exploits was made public last weekend, the operator of the Maxus Credit Card Datapipe site has gone […]

Everybody loves broadband — including, apparently, spammers. The @Home cable modem service in particular has become a haven for junk advertisers, according to opponents of unsolicited commercial messages in newsgroups and e-mail. Not only do spammers appreciate the speed at which the @Home connection can upload their junk mailings. They especially like taking advantage of […]

Cybercash Inc. is disputing an 18-year-old Russian cracker’s claims that the company’s credit card verification system was penetrated, resulting in the theft of thousands of credit card numbers from an online music store. Before it was taken offline early Sunday morning, the rogue site, a page of which has been mirrored here, had doled out […]

In what may be the largest credit card heist on the Internet, an 18-year-old Russian cracker claims to have stolen thousands of credit card numbers from an online store and dispensed them to visitors of his Web site. Before it was taken offline early Sunday morning, the rogue site, a page of which has been […]

Renowned University of Pennsylvania computer scientist David J. Farber Monday was named chief technologist for the Federal Communications Commission. Farber is the Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication Systems at the University of Pennsylvania where he is leading research in ultra-high speed networking and electronic commerce. Farber designed the one of the first operational message […]

Richard Stallman, the head of the Free Software Foundation, Thursday defended his call for a boycott of Amazon.com Inc. Last week, Stallman published an editorial accusing Amazon (AMZN) of threatening the freedom of e-commerce through its one-click patent. That’s the system Amazon uses for storing shopper’s credit card and shipping data so they can make […]

America Online Inc. is testing a new feature that would build viral marketing for its AOL Instant Messenger product directly into a future version of AOL 5.0. The feature, known as Mail Contacts, is a proposed enhancement to the online service’s Buddy List capability, and is designed in part to encourage AOL members to invite […]

Online music store CDNOW Tuesday announced that it has received a patent on its process of creating custom CDs on the World Wide Web. If it holds up, the patent could give CDNOW (CDNW) a powerful, if temporary, lever over the market for digitally distributed music, which is being pioneered by companies like Musicmaker.com and […]