Articles by Jay Lyman

Microsoft is making it clear that Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Windows XP -- a more than 220-MB software update dubbed "XP plus" and "mini-Longhorn" by some industry watchers -- will have a sizeable effect on other applications as it seeks to shut out security weaknesses in enterprise systems The Redmond, Washington-based software giant claims it has w...

Two new technologies from the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) -- a Xerox subsidiary and spinoff company that has produced laser printing, Ethernet and the graphical user interface, among other innovations -- promise to make wireless connections simpler and safer while giving today's mobile devices a new way to communicate and learn from each other...

In a plot twist reminiscent of a soap opera, domain registrar GoDaddy is throwing its support to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is being sued by dominant registrar VeriSign, the overseer of the .com and .net top-level domains (TLDs). The web of alliances involved in the dispute is tangled. GoDaddy is not a n...

Like a city corner that has fallen victim to the graffiti tag signs of rival gangs, the Internet has now become the basis of a war of words and worms between virus writers, who are unleashing virus variants to eat one another's work and spread to more computers The exchange among virus writers and the release of several variants taking part in the ...

The number of broadband digital subscriber lines (DSL) connecting users to the Internet grew 78 percent worldwide last year to more than 63 million, according to research from Point Topic and the DSL Forum, a consortium of DSL companies China led the way and now holds the world's largest DSL market, with increases in North America -- which has more...

To online file-traders, it is the original, pure file format for digital music. To the recording industry, it is a pirate ship that has been the basis for copyright violation and lost revenue. Regardless of what it once was and is now, the MP3 format is getting a facelift to include copy protection The move -- reportedly under way by MP3 patent hol...

Touting findings from the Pew Internet and American Life Project and other Internet use researchers, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has credited its controversial strategy of suing individual file-sharers with cutting the number of illegal trades in half Peer-to-peer (P2P) networking providers, meanwhile, point to courtroom af...

Reinforcing its efforts to bolster software security, Microsoft is planning to release updates to its Visual Studio .Net developer tools and .Net development environment. The news comes on the heels of the company's announcement that it will release a large, security-oriented service pack for its Windows XP operating system The company indicated it...

Privacy concerns over Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology are the basis of both proposed legislation in the United States and protest in Europe. The protests have been linked to German retailer Metro Group's plan to use the tracking technology for items in its supermarket stores However, despite reports of RFID tags turning up in U.S.

E-mail management company Sendmail is throwing its support to antispam efforts from both Microsoft and Yahoo as the major players seek to team up against junk e-mail and the increasing ease with which spammers fake their identities Spammers have remained ahead of both regulation and technology and have been able to continue sending a deluge of unwa...

Hoping for even bigger market share with a smaller portable music player, Apple has been heavily promoting its iPod technology in the form of the iPod mini, which the Cupertino, California-based company indicated this week is selling wildly among music and technology fans Apple found sweet success last year with the original iPod, which, paired wit...

With a mission squarely focused on securing the Internet through public policy, private industry participation and education, a dozen top security companies have formed the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, announced at the RSA security conference in San Francisco this week The companies, including Check Point, Computer Associates, Internet Securit...

Despite the misgivings of smaller domain-name registrars that stand to lose revenue and control over domain names that expire, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is considering approving a controversial service by VeriSign At its meetings to be held in Rome, Italy, next week, ICANN's board of directors is scheduled to t...

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) sellers anxious to keep offering voice and data services using the Internet are asking the federal government to continue to refrain from regulating the industry The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has kept VoIP free of the same regulatory requirements and fees charged to traditional circuit-switched tele...

Microsoft has made available a beta version of its forthcoming Windows XP Service Pack 2, due in full form in the middle of this year. The beta is currently available to testers who will get a glimpse of the major security upgrade that many liken to an entirely new operating system The new Service Pack 2 beta version comes as the Redmond, Washingto...

At the RSA security conference in San Francisco Tuesday, chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices announced a new, security-enhanced Alchemy Au1550 network processor aimed at bolstering security without bogging down servers and applications AMD said the Au1550 -- armed to support both SSL and IPsec virtual private network (VPN) protocols with a true random...

IBM and Nokia have unveiled the latest 9500 Communicator -- a BlackBerry-like handheld capable of running IBM and other enterprise office software applications on Nokia's Symbian operating system There is little doubt about the viability of Nokia-controlled Symbian -- a rival to Palm OS, Microsoft's Windows CE and embedded Linux -- for all types of...

In stark contrast to the long waits typical for Windows users wanting to patch software vulnerabilities, recently discovered security weaknesses in the core of the Linux operating system were addressed by major vendors in a matter of just a few days this week Two security vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel's memory management code reported by secu...

Move over, parental warnings for explicit lyrics and violence, there's something more important: preventing piracy The Federal Bureau of Investigation has announced with intellectual property purveyors -- including the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Entertainment Software A...

Adding incentive for companies to adopt its Internet Protocol (IP) telephony products, networking giant Cisco has announced new software and hardware to deliver broadcast-quality video and voice over IP networks Cisco said the addition of video will round out its IP communications offerings to allow a "rich-media videoconferencing experience" that ...