Ryan Naraine

After hinting for months it would consider selling adult content, RealNetworks on Thursday announced a deal to market streaming programming from Playboy.com, but company officials emphasized Playboy was not a part of its flagship RealOne SuperPass service. The Seattle-based digital media firm officially launched the RealOne OpenPass marketplace that includes backend technology that powers the […]

With the threat of network intrusion attacks on the rise, financial services powerhouse Merrill Lynch is turning to security software company Verisign to manage hundreds of its network security devices worldwide. Financial terms of the outsourcing deal were not released. Verisign , based in Mountain View, Calif., has made a name for itself in the […]

Looking to beef up its e-commerce offerings and tap into the lucrative market for sexual intimacy products, New York-based iVillage on Tuesday announced a partnership with Drugstore.com to launch a “Sex Boutique” storefront. iVillage, an ad-dependent property that has dabbled with premium content and e-commerce offerings to widen its revenue streams, said the opening of […]

Network security software firm Sniffer Technologies is positioning itself as a one-stop-shop for enterprise security diagnostics with the launch of its new blade-based appliance. The subsidiary of Network Associates is rolling out its Network Protection Platform for enterprises and service providers. At its core is the new s6040 appliance, styled as a rack-mounted high-speed unit […]

On the same day a new e-mail worm was found masquerading as a missive from Microsoft’s technical support, the software giant announced it would partner with Network Associates and Trend Micro to tackle high-risk viruses. The companies said the Virus Information Alliance (VIA) would create a special Web-based repository for information on viruses affecting Microsoft’s […]

Less than two years after going live as a legal alternative to the rogue file-sharing program Napster, the Pressplay digital music service has been acquired by Roxio and will be relaunched as Napster. Roxio, known mostly for CD and DVD recording software, announced Monday it would shell out about $40 million in cash and stock […]

Two security analysts on Friday urged financial institutions and other enterprises to stop using Microsoft’s .NET Passport service immediately because the identity of users cannot be trusted. “Microsoft failed to thoroughly test Passport’s security architecture, and this flaw — uncovered more than six months after Microsoft added the vulnerable feature to the system — raises […]

In a move aimed at simplifying the syndication of its daily top stories, internetnews.com has added an RSS feed that shuttles links to newsreaders and aggregators. RSS, or Rich Site Summary , first developed by Netscape in the 1990s, allows newsreaders and aggregators to scrape links and article summaries for syndication. With the internetnews.com feed, […]

A group of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) operators on Friday announced the hijacking of a Geocities Web page used by the ‘Fizzer’ virus to update itself. The ‘Fizzer Task Force’ claims to have “altered” the malicious Geocities page and added a ‘Fizzer’ cleaner to the actual URL that the IRC bot downloads its updates from, […]

Seattle-based digital media powerhouse RealNetworks Inc. on Friday announced the resignation of chief financial officer Brian Turner because of undisclosed health issues. The company, which is battling hard to stave off the challenge from Microsoft’s Windows Media 9 Series, said Turner will remain as CFO until June in order to ensure a smooth transition. RealNetworks […]

Security experts Thursday warned of a vulnerability in the Linux Kernel 2.4 branch, which can be exploited to cause denial-of-service attacks. The hole in the popular open-source operating system was detected in the way the Linux Kernel handles caching of routing information. “By flooding a Linux system with packets with spoofed source addresses, the handling […]

Moving to beef up its Firewall/VPN Appliance series, Internet security specialists Symantec Corp. has acquired Nexland Inc. in a cash deal valued at $19.6 million. Symantec, which sells content and network security software to enterprise and consumer clients, already has a two-year joint development deal with Miami, Fl.-based Nexland. With the acquisition, Symantec gobbles up […]