Articles by Jay Lyman

Oracle has released its enterprise database for small businesses, promising the same features of its larger database at an entry-level price and position Oracle said Standard Edition One, a single-processor version of Standard Edition Database, will be offered at US$5,995 for unlimited users or at a per-user price of $195 with a minimum of five use...

Touting more than 150 new features -- including improved interoperability with Windows and Linux -- Apple has announced that its updated Mac OS X Panther operating system will be available on October 24th The Cupertino, California-based company said Mac OS X version 10.3 delivers new features that will not be available in a Windows operating system...

Charter Communications is the latest major ISP to take legal measures to prevent the Recording Industry Association of America from using subpoenas to reveal the identity of its Web users In a suit filed in federal district court in St. Louis, Missouri, Charter is seeking to block the RIAA from obtaining the identities of its customers, including t...

The aliens of the forthcoming video game Half Life 2 have been upstaged by Grinch-like hackers who stole some of the game's code and posted it online, meaning release of the real game likely will be pushed back until after the holiday season. Valve Software, maker of the popular first-person shooter, confirmed that code posted online late last wee...

Microsoft's recent deal with Phoenix Technologies is aimed at "radical simplification to the PC and digital service industry" through enhancements to the Basic Input Output System (BIOS) -- the software that connects operating systems with hardware Industry observers agreed that the next generation of BIOS, as well as the digital rights management ...

In a letter sent to VeriSign on Friday, ICANN CEO Paul Twomey told the domain registry that it had until 6 PM Saturday to comply with a request to take down the SiteFinder service. At some point on Saturday, VeriSign complied with the request and turned off the redirection service for mistyped .com and .net domains Having failed to convince VeriSig...

SGI, the latest distributor of Linux under fire from SCO Group and its source-code claims, has met SCO's threat to pull SGI's license for Irix by removing portions of the code in question and counterclaiming that SCO's position is "absurd." Mountain View, California-based SGI's vice president of software, Rich Altmaier, wrote in the "Letter to the ...

Having failed to convince VeriSign to voluntarily suspend its Web redirection service that began September 15th, the body that oversees all domain registrars is now pointing to contract violations and demanding that VeriSign halt the service The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) sent a letter to VeriSign and a message to I...

While computer attackers are taking advantage of a recent vulnerability in Internet Explorer, Microsoft has yet to release an update that can patch exposed systems. However, there are workarounds that users can employ to protect their systems The software security holes that affect Internet Explorer versions 5.01 through 6.0, first disclosed in Aug...

Once again, computer attackers are taking advantage of a recent vulnerability -- this time an unpatched flaw in Microsoft's widely used Internet Explorer browser -- to have their way with vulnerable Windows machines through malicious programs known as Trojans The software security holes that affect Internet Explorer versions 5.01 through 6.0, first...

Despite criticism of its technical and legal tactics, the Recording Industry Association of America is continuing its campaign of lawsuits against individual Internet file traders accused of copyright infringement Opponents of the strategy, which so far has consisted of nearly 1,500 subpoenas and 261 lawsuits, claimed a victory when the RIAA agreed...

Reinforcing the message that can be easily inferred from recent virus and worm outbreaks, security giant Symantec has reported that attacks on company computers -- up 19 percent to an average of 38 attacks per business per week -- increasingly are using a potent combination of disclosed security vulnerabilities and complex computer worms to hit systems...

The list of legitimate alternatives to the music-trading networks that were used by nearly 60 million people last year grew larger this week with a new service from San Diego-based MusicMatch Similar to Apple's successful iTunes, which claimed 10 million downloads earlier this month, MusicMatch will let users download songs for 99 cents each withou...

State and federal law enforcement authorities have announced a second arrest related to a variant of the Blaster computer worm. Meanwhile, security experts are watching and waiting for another virus variant to take advantage of a similar security hole in Microsoft Windows systems Blaster took advantage of a Remote Procedure Call (RPC) vulnerability...

In the face of increasingly tougher state and federal law that includes fines as heavy as US$1 million and potential jail time, spammers are hitting back by attacking antispam Web sites known for assisting administrators in the fight against unwanted commercial e-mail The latest activity -- both from lawmakers anxious to crack down on the mass-mail...

One of the Recording Industry Association of America lawsuits, launched this month against 261 accused illegal file traders, has been dismissed by the industry group, calling its technical tracking of alleged song swappers into question The RIAA said it has dismissed a suit against 66-year-old Sarah Ward of Boston after the retired teacher denied e...

Sending the unwanted e-mail solicitations known as spam to Californians likely will become a lot more expensive, thanks to a new law that will fine spammers and advertisers as much as US$1 million per incident. Described as the toughest law in the country, California's rule was signed into law today by Gov. Gray Davis, who warned spammers and adve...

Internet search leaders Overture and Google both are testing services that deliver local results as they seek to bolster the already burgeoning market for Web searches Earlier this month, Pasadena, California-based Overture became the first major search engine to begin testing a service that incorporates the geographic location of the user when del...

Beneath all the noise generated by the latest security holes in Microsoft's Windows operating system, experts have warned of two open-source security flaws that could allow intruders to corrupt memory, take control of systems and launch a denial-of-service (DoS) attack Software affected by the most serious flaw includes releases of the widely used ...

Consternation over VeriSign's plan to redirect mistyped or nonexistent domain name requests has progressed to a call from the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to suspend the service and a US$100 million lawsuit from a company claiming damages from it VeriSign's new "wildcard" service, called SiteFinder, is intended t...