Ryan Naraine

Despite skepticism that the buzz around social networking tools is fueled by venture capital-created hype, executives at some of these start-ups insist there’s money to be made from software that connects friends to friends of friends. Services like Friendster, Tribe Networks, LinkedIn and Google’s Orkut may be growing in popularity but, as Tribe founder Mark […]

The aggressive MyDoom mass-mailing virus is scheduled to stop propagating itself today but open TCP ports on millions of computers worldwide mean that malicious hackers still have the upper hand. The W32.Novarg.A@mm (MyDoom) virus, which spread at an alarming rate in late January, is programmed to stop its distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack against the home […]

Less than a week after its efforts to kick at Disney’s tires were rebuffed, cable television giant Comcast has announced a blockbuster $66 billion offer to merge with the entertainment powerhouse. Comcast , the largest cable TV and high-speed ISP in the U.S., said a marriage with the Walt Disney Company would “create one of […]

The U.S. Copyright Office has given the thumbs-up to an agreement on royalty rates between the recording industry and online radio broadcasters, a move that gives webcasters several royalty payment options. For the 2003-2004 period, the settlement agreement spells out the royalty rates for all webcasters — ranging from Internet-only Webcasters to subscription services to […]

Microsoft on Tuesday issued a “critical” alert for a buffer overflow flaw in its implementation of the Abstract Syntax Notation 1 (ASN.1) data standard, warning that malicious hackers could seize complete control of unpatched machines. The patch for the Microsoft ASN.1 Library was released with a chilling warning that a successful exploit would allow an […]

British security research firm NGSSoftware has discovered multiple security vulnerabilities in Oracle’s database server software. The firm is warning that the most serious flaw could lead to system takeover. The vulnerabilities affect the Oracle9i Database (both enterprise and standard editions) and can be exploited by malicious database users to compromise the system and gain escalated […]

Microsoft’s aggressive push digital content market got a major boost Monday with the announcement of a multiyear pact with the Walt Disney Company to securely distribute Disney entertainment on the Internet and on portable devices. Disney, which already hawks movie rentals on the MovieLink online movie distribution service, plans to license Microsoft’s proprietary Windows Media […]

Digital media delivery firm RealNetworks has issued a major update to its flagship media player to plug three security holes that could potentially put millions of users at risk of system takeover. The Seattle-based RealNetworks Thursday confirmed the three exploits in an advisory and warned that the newest RealPlayer 10 was also vulnerable to one […]

Digital publishing software powerhouse Adobe has lined up a slew of big name executives and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to headline its CEO Summit scheduled for Thursday, February 5. In partnership with the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group (SVMG), the CEO Summit will be held at Adobe’s San Jose, Calif. headquarters and will kick off with […]

The Wi-Fi Alliance has announced plans to upgrade the security capabilities in a new version of its industry-standard Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) protocol due for release later this year. The non-profit group, which certifies interoperability of wireless LAN products based on the IEEE 802.11 specification, said the next version of WPA, dubbed WPA2, would be […]

Microsoft on Monday released an oft-delayed cumulative patch to fix several known security holes in its flagship Internet Explorer (IE) browser. The software giant issued the IE fix outside of its scheduled release cycle because of the “critical” nature of the patch and because proof-of-concept exploits have been circulating on several mailing lists. Microsoft said […]

Microsoft’s planned Internet Explorer (IE) modification to fix security holes in the browser could disrupt e-commerce sites that use clear text to authenticate user names and passwords. Lead product manager in Microsoft’s Windows division Greg Sullivan told internetnews.com that e-commerce Web sites that send clear text for authentication will return an “invalid syntax error” on […]