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IT News Review - Week ending October 27, 2000

IDG staff, Information Age

27/10/2000 17:11:07

CSIRO Outsourcing Update

Despite strong opposition by the science body's staff and calls to halt the controversial program, plans are still afoot to outsource the CSIRO's IT infrastructure.

The Office of Asset Sales and IT Outsourcing (OASITO) will send out tender notifications to industry in early November for the Group Nine cluster of commonwealth agencies which includes the CSIRO.

Click on the link below for the full storyhttp://computerworld.com.au/cwt1997.NSF/cwtoday/24D907F4B37346874A25698400816E4A!OpenDocumentSun Says Java Moving Towards Full Open SourceSun Microsystems is moving toward making its Java technology fully open source, a company executive said, addressing an audience of programmers at the ApacheCon Europe 2000.

"There will be some magic point in the future, I believe where we'll reach critical mass. When we reach that point at Sun, you'll see us go to a much more open source," said George Paolini Sun's vice president of technologiesadvocacy and community development in the conference's first keynote speech.

Click on the link below for the full storyhttp://www2.idg.com.au/nwwdb.NSF/nwtoday/3EB77D65F9B860AB4A2569840019E511Australia lagging in broadband adoptionUnder current government policy, only three per cent of Australian businesses and two per cent of consumers will adopt broadband technologies by 2003, figures which have damning implications for our national credence in the Internet economy.

This is the warning issued by Bob Hayward, senior vice president of Gartner, Asia-Pacific, at Gartner's Symposium/Itxpo in Brisbane.

Click on the link below for the full storyhttp://arn.idg.com.au/arndb.nsf/tibco_stories/D1CED93EA057EBF54A2569840001EBF1Edge's Wang declared bankruptJohnson and Phynia Wang, founders of collapsed computer wholesaler Edge and failed ISP eisa, were declared bankrupt in the Federal Court Tuesday in the face of "overwhelming" evidence against them.

Being held personally liable for more than $36 million, the couple fled the country in June to avoid the wrath of creditors.

Click on the link below for the full storyhttp://arn.idg.com.au/arndb.nsf/tibco_stories/F55D1F6D211122F64A2569840002B338Vendor Group Developing Standard for B2BA group of vendors including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Oracle and Sun Microsystems said that it's working to develop a proposed XML-based standard for use by companies in coordinating and processing multiparty transactions via the Web.

The announcement of the proposed standard was led by Bowstreet Inc., a US-based vendor that provides XML infrastructure technology for automating e-commerce transactions. HP, IBM, Oracle and Sun signed on as participants in the new initiative, which plans to create an extension of XML that will support key transaction-processing capabilities.

Click on the link below for the full storyhttp://computerworld.com.au/cwt1997.NSF/cwtoday/2E98DC30FD7076D64A25698300796F68!OpenDocumentTaxi Company Adopts Speech Recognition TechnologyTaxis and natural language speech recognition (NLSR) technology seem an unlikely match, but an Australian taxi service company sees it as a tool to improve customer service.

Gold Coast-based Regent Taxis is implementing TeleCab Express, an NLSR booking application developed by VeCommerce, which will enable customers to place their taxi bookings directly with the taxi dispatch computer instead of via an operator.

Click on the link below for the full storyhttp://computerworld.com.au/cwt1997.NSF/cwtoday/6F25A989678437614A256983007680FA!OpenDocumentTaxi Company Adopts Speech Recognition TechnologyForget the WAP WobblesForget the WAP wobbles. Jump on the mobile Internet horse and get rockin', says Claus Hansen director of mobile communications at Schlumberger. "Get on with it. Attract quality content and start to educate your subscribers towards data."

The horse, of course he wants you to ride uses smartcard technology from his company and others from a group of otherwise competing manufacturers called the SIMalliance.

Click on the link below for the full storyhttp://computerworld.com.au/cwt1997.NSF/cwtoday/44EBEFED99B874C44A25698300758FBB!OpenDocumentGovt Names New E-council MembersThe federal government has named the 13 members of a new peak body formed to boost business and consumer confidence in e-commerce.

Members of the National Electronic Authentication Council (NEAC), which will examine e-commerce authentication issues, held its inaugural meeting last week.

Click on the link below for the full storyhttp://computerworld.com.au/cwt1997.NSF/cwtoday/40A7C380EDB1B1314A256982007FA461!OpenDocumentFalling dollar forces MS price hikeThe seemingly continuous fall of the Australian dollar is starting to take its toll on the industry with Microsoft announcing it will be forced to increase the price of its software.

Claiming the pricing differential for its business application tools, operating systems, server software and development tools is no longer sustainable, the software giant will increase prices from between 10 and 18 per cent from December 1.

Click on the link below for the full storyhttp://arn.idg.com.au/arndb.nsf/tibco_stories/244AB8DF3A6A33474A2569820002B378IIS Flaw "Most Serious Hole"- Aussie User GroupAccess/ASP/SQL Server User Group (SSW) president in Sydney Adam Cogan has described the security flaw in Microsoft's Internet Information Server, publicised recently, as the "most serious hole I've seen in IS."

Gogan estimates that "70 per cent of Australian Web sites" are using the software and has issued a warning to members in the group's newsletter adding it will affect a fair chunk of Australian business. "It's about as serious as it gets. When you can read code and execute unauthorised files it doesn't exactly give you a warm and fuzzy feeling; but Microsoft do respond to problems quickly by making a patch available straight away and that's what is important to us," he said.

Click on the link below for the full storyhttp://www2.idg.com.au/nwwdb.NSF/nwtoday/760F12F8A4ED94144A2569820001BA07Olympic hardware under the hammerIBM is denying rumours that hardware and systems used for the Olympics will be auctioned en masse at the completion of the Paralympic games. The rumours were leaked via an industry source who suggested more than 7000 PCs and Thinkpads will go under the hammer along with 540 Netfinity servers, 815 network switches, 50km of cable and 3 S/390 parallel sysplex systems.

Click on the link below for the full storyhttp://arn.idg.com.au/arndb.nsf/tibco_stories/7E3C2E5DB1CF4CDD4A2569810005E59DMindSpring Site Exposes Password FilesAn unpatched, buggy version of open-source e-commerce software, combined with a misconfigured hosting server, exposed password files earlier this month for approximately 100 domains hosted by Atlanta-based EarthLink Inc. The chain of events included the discovery of a 2-year-old security flaw and the exposure of password lists for all customers on two MindSpring Enterprises Inc. servers. The situation illustrates some of the potential perils of failing to register e-commerce software with vendors that issue security and other upgrade advisories.

Click on the link below for the full storyhttp://computerworld.com.au/cwt1997.NSF/cwtoday/3BB89AC10311E7534A2569800062678D!OpenDocumentWill Xerox Shut the PARC?

Yet another titan of American capitalism is teetering near the brink of breakup. Following weeks of speculation that phone giant AT&T is planning to spin off various business units, the nearly bankrupt Xerox is reportedly considering selling off parts of itself, including the world-famous XeroxPARC research centre in Palo Alto, California.

In recent weeks, Xerox has been rumored to be near bankruptcy, prompting speculation about moves the company will make. Xerox won't comment on reports in the New York Times (NYT) that it is in talks to sell the institution to venture capitalists, but such a sale would almost surely spell the end of the venerable research centre as it exists today.

Click on the link below for the full storyhttp://computerworld.com.au/cwt1997.NSF/cwtoday/B8789D533E2427E64A25698000626323!OpenDocumentExperts Predict Rise in Severe Web AttacksThe types of massive distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks that knocked out several big e-commerce Web sites earlier this year remain a threat that could grow in sophistication, according to experts at the US government-sponsored National Information Systems Security Conference recently.

DDOS attacks entered the public consciousness in February when commercial sites like those of eBay and Buy.com were brought down by an overwhelming flood of traffic.

Click on the link below for the full storyhttp://computerworld.com.au/cwt1997.NSF/cwtoday/B686D9EEFA3AE51A4A256980006270D1!OpenDocumentVariant of "I Love You" Virus AttacksThe troubling ways of the "I Love You" virus that hit computer networks about five months ago are still tormenting some users, who were hit by one of the more destructive variants of the virus that appeared last week. Almost 50 variants to "I Love You" have turned up in recent months. The attention-grabbing subject line for the latest mutant, which reads - "US PRESIDENT AND FBI SECRETS" - made it especially troublesome. Users at around thirty organizations around the US reported being affected by the nasty program, which is named VBS/Loveletter.bj, according to officials at antivirus company McAfee.

Click on the link below for the full storyhttp://computerworld.com.au/cwt1997.NSF/cwtoday/E2BBD9073AA1FB4A4A25698000625C37!OpenDocument