Ryan Naraine

A wireless security expert has detected a glaring weakness in the interface design of a highly touted Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) protocol deployed in numerous Wireless LAN products. According to a research paper posted on Wi-Fi Networking News, the weakness could allow intruders to crack poorly chosen passphrases via offline dictionary attacks. The weakness detailed […]

Just weeks after the ballyhooed launch of the next generation Microsoft Office software suite, the software giant issued a ‘critical’ update to fix problems in the Powerpoint, Word and Excel products. The problems were discovered in Microsoft Office 2003, which was released on October 21 as the biggest upgrade for the personal productivity desktop software […]

The World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) request to have the controversial ActiveX patent reexamined and reversed might be unusual but it’s not without precedent. Back in 1994, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) conducted a thorough reexamination and rescinded Patent Number 5,241,671, which was previously issued to Compton’s New Media, a unit of Encyclopedia […]

For the second time in as many weeks, Microsoft has issued major revisions to several ‘critical’ security patches because of problems associated with Debug Programs (SeDebugPrivilege). The weekly tweaks to the company’s first monthly mega-alert have become an embarrassment for the software giant, which promised in early October to issue updates on a “very unpredictable […]

Warning that the enforcement of U.S Patent No. 5,838,906 could cause “substantial economic and technical damage” to the operation of the Internet, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on Wednesday called for an immediate re-examination of the patent that is forcing major changes to the world’s most popular Web browser. “The impact of this patent […]

NEW YORK — IBM Corp. on Monday announced its entry into the enterprise privacy management space, rolling out a new service gives clients a simplified way of implementing privacy policies. In partnership with privately held Watchfire, IBM said the new service would offer page scans of millions of Web pages to identify broken links, typographical […]

Web search powerhouse Google has contacted investment banks about an initial public offering (IPO) that could value the company in the range of $15 billion and $25 billion, according to separate reports in the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal. Many observers believe a Google IPO, which has been the subject of rampant speculation in […]

E-commerce superstore Amazon.com on Thursday raised the curtains on a new “Search Inside the Book” feature that lets shoppers preview full text of titles. The Seattle-based Amazon.com said the new service has been tightly integrated into the existing book search area of its home page to let shoppers find titles based on every word inside […]

Microsoft on Thursday issued a “major revision” to a security patch released earlier this month, warning that it caused a compatibility problem with third party software. The original patch (MS03-045), included in the company’s first monthly advisory, plugged a buffer overrun vulnerability in the ListBox and ComboBox controls that could lead to harmful code execution. […]

Motorola plans to take a multi-standard approach to video delivery in cell phones, announcing it would use technologies from RealNetworks, PacketVideo and Microsoft in its handsets. In declining to commit to a single technology provider, the number two handset manufacturer said it would integrate player technology from RealNetworks in its Linux-based handsets and technology from […]

Telco giant AT&T on Wednesday rushed to withdraw two notices sent to business partners and customers asking for the IP addresses of all outbound SMTP servers because of a “human error” gaffe. With a significant increase in incoming spam over the past few days, AT&T sent out the notices demanding the IP addresses, presumably to […]

A default link in the “My Music” folder within Windows XP could land Microsoft in hot water with the Department of Justice. In a joint status report on Microsoft’s compliance with the Windows antitrust settlement, the U.S. Justice Department warned that the “Shop for Music Online” feature that automatically loads the Internet Explorer browser on […]