ICANN Narrows Field Of Possible Internet Domains
The list of possible new Internet domains was pared down
today as the staff of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) weeded out several proposals that didn't meet ICANN's
rigorous standards.
Next week, members of ICANN's board of directors are expected to
approve the first new generic top-level Internet domains (gTLDs) since the
advent of .com, .org and .net more than a decade ago.
Judge Delays MP3.com, Universal Ruling
A federal judge granted a motion to MP3.com and Universal
Music Group to delay his decision on damage awards to Universal
and parent company Seagram Co. until Tuesday.
Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the US District Court for the Southern
District of New York today was scheduled to award damages in the
lawsuit Universal brought against Seagram.
FCC Defends AOL/Time Warner Decision
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today
defended its decision to "stop the clock" on its review of America
Online's acquisition of Time Warner in favor of letting
the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) decide the matter first, saying
action on the merger before antitrust regulators have had a chance
to air their concerns with the two companies would only delay the
FTC's decision.
In a letter responding to inquiries from Senate Antitrust
Subcommittee Chairman Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, and ranking Democrat
Herbert Kohl, Wisc., FCC Chairman William Kennard cited press
reports that the FTC and the two companies were still negotiating
"significant issues that could have a substantial impact" on the
FCC's review.
AOL, Time Warner Argue With FTC Over Settlement
America Online Inc. and Time Warner Inc.
are still trying to reach a settlement with the Federal
Trade Commission (FTC) in advance of a planned meeting on their
proposed $124 billion merger reportedly scheduled for Thursday
afternoon.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the failure by the parties to
reach a settlement may delay a vote on the deal, and that, in the
meantime, other FTC officials are preparing to go to court to block
the merger should those settlement talks fail.
Microsoft, Sagem Intro Next-Gen PDA Smartphone
SDMI Says At Least Three Technologies Survived Hacker Test
An industry-backed organization attempting to devise
standards for the delivery of digital music online says that at
least three proposed copyright-protection technologies survived a
controversial $60,000 open challenge to the "hacker" community.
However, a team of researchers who would rather publish the results
of their hacks than collect prize money beg to differ.
NASA Hacker Pleads Guilty
Jason Allen Diekman, alias "Shadow Knight"
or "Dark Lord," has pled guilty in a California court to hacking
into hundreds of NASA, US government and university computers. He
could face up to 16 years in prison.
Reuters reports that the 20-year-old pled guilty to federal charges
at a closed-door hearing, entering his plea to US District Judge
Dean Pregerson on Monday.
Gates To Hawk $135.4 Million In MSFT
Bill Gates reportedly plans to offload Microsoft Corp.
[NASDAQ:MSFT] stock valued at $135.4 million, according to a filing
on Monday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
A Reuters report said Gates, Microsoft's co-founder and chairman
intends to soon sell 2 million shares of common stock. The last time
Gates went to market, Sept. 8, he sold 1 million MSFT shares for
$69.7 million. Over the past three months, Gates has traded 10
million shares for $702.4 million, according to SEC documents. The
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has sold 22.865 million shares for
$1.6 billion.
Mafiaboy To Plead Guilty In Web Attacks
A Montreal-area teen-age computer hacker known online
as "Mafiaboy" has agreed to plead guilty to a series of attacks
on high-profile Internet sites including CNN, Yahoo and others,
according to prosecutors.
A report by Agence France-Presse (AFP) said today that the
16-year-old, who remains unidentified due to Canada's youth
protection law, has agreed to plead guilty to most of the 66 charges
he faces, according prosecutor Louis Miville-Deschenes, who addressed
a juvenile court hearing on Monday.
All States Should Have Online Voting By 2004 - Gartner
All 50 US states should offer some form on Internet voting
by the time the presidential election in 2004 rolls around, according to a
report from the Gartner Group.
While the Internet may be creeping into just about every aspect of
political campaigns today - from fundraising to get-out-the-vote
drives - the trend toward e-voting may be as much a result of
obsolescence as of technological innovation, the study indicates.
MP3.com Picks FusionOne For Music Library Synching
Fusion One Inc., whose technology helps users
synchronize data on Net-connected (but far-flung) PCs, handheld
devices and wireless phones, will be helping to tame music
collections for MP3.com subscribers.
The two companies announced a deal today through which online
music destination MP3.com will enable FusionOne's Internet sync
technology for its subscribers. That technology makes it possible
for users to automatically make information stored on one device -
such as e-mail, documents and Web-browser bookmarks - available
on any other device running FusionOne's software.
Political Hackers A Growing Threat - Survey
A growing risk for large global companies are
hackers with political agendas, said security firm Control Risks
Group, at the roll out of its annual "Risk Map 2001" survey.
Reuters quoted Control Risks Group's Kent Anderson as saying, "The
methods they are using are in their infancy," but that, "We're going
to start seeing this sort of thing for a whole range of issues." The
survey listed 12 countries as representing "extreme" political and
security risks to multinational companies, up from five in 1997:
Afghanistan, Burundi, Chad, Congo (Brazzaville and Democratic
Republic of Congo), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Russia (Chechnya),
Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka (north and northeast) and Sudan.
ASCAP Ready To License Napster
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers
(ASCAP), administrators of performance royalties for songwriters,
reportedly said on Thursday it continued to be ready and willing to
issue a license to distribute performances of copyrighted music to
beleaguered online song-swap service Napster Inc.
A report by Reuters today cited ASCAP president and chairman Marilyn
Bergman as saying that her organization had already indicated in
discussions with Napster that it has never sought to shut the service
down. "Indeed, we would be happy to see it grow and prosper," she is
quoted as saying in response to inquiries about a pending alliance
announced between Napster and Bertelsmann AG, parents of BMG music,
which would see Napster transformed into a paid-membership operation.
Kaspersky Lab Warns Over PIF Format Files
As
new variants of the infamous ILOVEYOU virus continue to arrive on
users' PCs with monotonous regularity, Kaspersky Lab has warned users
to be on the lookout for a new generation of malware using the
program information file (PIF) file format.
The Russian IT security specialist said that while there are some
quite legitimate files being sent by e-mail with the PIF file
extension, PC users should nevertheless be very wary of any file with
a PIF extension.
Security Firm Claims Win Over Hackers In SDMI Challenge
If copyright-protection schemes being tested
by the recording industry turn out to be as obscure as the judging
of an open challenge to those who might defeat the technology,
digital music could be safe from hackers for some time to come.
For nearly two weeks, the industry-backed Secure Digital Music
Initiative (SDMI) has been fending off reports that at least some
of 447 attempts made by would-be hackers were successful in
circumventing the six security technologies served up for the open
challenge.
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