Michael Chait

In testimony before a U.S. senate subcommittee on Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission requested expanded authority over the telecommunications industry. The commission, which oversees fair trade practices, suggested the elimination of the FTC Act’s exemption for communications common carriers. The Federal Communications Commission currently regulates the telecom industry, which because of the exemption escapes the […]

Pushing forward in its drive to accelerate the move to the new IP addressing system, IP version 6 (IPv6), Almeda, CA-based Wind River today announced IPv6 support for its WindNet network stack. Developed in concert with Siemens , WindNet IPv6 provides the protocol and integrated networking support required for the next-generation IP protocol that is […]

Hacktivists, those using their hacking skills to promote social causes, have taken to ensuring a truly open Internet. This week, two major efforts have stepped forth to get content through government firewalls. Peekabooty and Hacktivismo both released software this week that may change the way people get information, and may also have censoring governments scrambling […]

MPEG LA, a group of patent holders to the MPEG-4 format, finally reached agreement on Monday regarding final licensing terms after initial terms, released in February, outraged the digital media community. Under the new terms, due to go into effect this September, Web sites can license the latest video and audio compression format for 25 […]

Microsoft and Sun , who have been battling it out in the Web services arena, are both moving forward in the race to provide a secure single sign-on system for Web services. Monday, The Liberty Alliance, a Sun-backed group, plans to unveil its long-awaited technical specifications for online “identity management” systems. Identity management tools are […]

Two vulnerabilities were discovered Wednesday in the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) ToolTalk RPC database server that could allow hackers to delete files or cause a denial-of-service (DoS) attack (define). CDE is an integrated graphical user interface (define) that runs on UNIX and Linux operating systems, and is widely installed as a default program. The ToolTalk […]

In a move aimed at re-staking its claim in the high-end hard drive market, IBM Tuesday unveiled a new industrial-strength server hard disk drive. The Ultrastar 146Z10 debuts IBM’s new anti-vibration technology called Rotational Vibration Safeguard (RVS), which seeks to improve performance in large disk arrays. Vibration has become a serious obstacle to performance as […]

In a sign that the Internet sector may be nearing the end of its 18-month-old shakeout, a new report from Webmergers.com shows the number of shutdowns and bankruptcies by dot-coms in the first half of this year fell 73% from the same period last year. While at least 93 Internet companies closed their doors or […]

With online music piracy continuing at a tremendous pace despite major efforts to shut down the sites and P2P networks that foster it, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) may be embarking upon a major shift in its battle plan. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the “big five” recording companies, working through […]

IBM this week continued its cost-cutting campaign, joining New York Governor Pataki to announce the sale of its Endicott, N.Y. facility to a local business group. According to published reports, Endicott Interconnect Technologies, Inc., a newly formed company, will invest $100 million and will acquire the entire IBM Endicott Campus, which is comprised of numerous […]

After a warning was issued two weeks ago that a chunk handling flaw on the popular Apache web server application could leave servers vulnerable, security experts are now working to decode a worm that has been discovered exploiting the flaw. The worm, which is designed to infect computers running FreeBSD 4.5 and either Apache version […]

Microsoft is warning their Commerce Server software customers that they should immediately apply a security patch to fix a number of flaws in the program that could allow hackers to take control of the server. The warning applies to System administrators running Microsoft’s Commerce Server 2000 or Commerce Server 2002. Four vulnerabilities were discovered in […]