Published: April 20, 2005, 11:34 AM PDT
By Ben Charny Staff Writer, CNET News.com
The recent discovery of a large number of malicious mobile phone programs should raise concerns throughout the wireless industry, according to a virus tracker.
Cell phone antivirus software company SimWorks reported Wednesday that 52 new Trojan horses are hidden inside several different cell phones games and other readily available mobile phone software. While the software appears to be safe to share or use, the Trojans actually contain malicious software that crashes many critical cell phone system components.
The Trojan horses target only cell phones that use Symbian, an advanced, or "smart phone," operating system that competes with similar software from Microsoft to bring PC-like capabilities to phones. To date, no phones have been affected, according to Aaron Davidson, chief executive officer of SimWorks.
Smart phones continue to represent just a tiny percentage of overall cell phones sold. But many analysts and cell phone industry insiders say that as these advanced operating systems become more common over the next decade, cell phone viruses will become more widespread as well.
While the damage is negligible so far, the recent warnings from SimWorks and security specialist F-Secure are raising alarm bells in the wireless industry. The latest report brings the total number of known Symbian Trojan horses to more than 100.
Virus writers appear to be producing malicious mobile phone programs at an unprecedented pace, as well. Between June and October of 2004, a new Symbian virus would emerge once a month. Now that pace is once a week, Davidson said.
"Putting together this many Trojans would be very time-consuming and shows a considerable amount of determination on the part of the writer or writers," Davidson said. "Even if the original writer or writers never intended for them to be released into the wild, the fact that they are making their way through the writing community means that someone at some point will definitely release them."
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Written by: Grant Gross, IDG News Service
WASHINGTON--Three U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday introduced a bill that would permanently extend a ban on Internet-only taxes, including taxes on Internet access.
The legislation would ban three types of taxes that single out the Internet: taxes on Internet access, multiple taxation by two or more states of a product or service bought over the Internet, and taxes that treat Internet purchases differently from other types of sales.
"It's important that we take a stand right here and now to make sure that we say that the United States of America and the Internet will be a no-tax zone, now and forever," said Senator George Allen, a Virginia Republican and one of the bill's sponsors. Senators Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and Representative Christopher Cox (news, bio, voting record), a California Republican, co-sponsored the bill.
The bill would extend a current Internet tax moratorium that is due to expire in 2007.
Supporters of the Internet Tax Non-Discrimination Act in 2004 attempted to permanently ban what supporters call "discriminatory" Internet taxes, but a group of U.S. senators held up the bill because of concerns that it would stop states from taxing forms of telecommunications transmitted by Internet Protocol, as more telecom providers move traffic to voice over IP. In a compromise, the Senate approved a version of the bill that extended a five-year ban against Internet-only taxes levied by states and local governments.
Allen said this bill does not address the issue of VoIP taxation: "That will be a separate battle." Also, an existing grandfather-clause compromise that allows some current state Internet taxes to expire in 2005 and others in 2007 would remain in place.
Supporters of the tax ban say access and other Internet taxes would slow U.S. adoption of broadband services, potentially slowing the U.S. economy. "The Internet Tax Freedom law has created a level playing field, stopping unfair and discriminatory tax schemes that would wall off the Internet to many consumers and make e-commerce impossible for online business owners," Wyden said in a statement. "Internet users and entrepreneurs who breathed a sigh of relief at this law's extension should have the security of knowing its protections will never go away."
Allen also has introduced another bill to prevent Congress from extending a long-standing telecommunications tax to Internet access. In January, Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation suggested an expansion of a 3 percent federal excise tax on telecommunications to Internet traffic, including e-mail and data services.
Erik Larkin of Medill News Service contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON--Three U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday introduced a bill that would permanently extend a ban on Internet-only taxes, including taxes on Internet access.
The legislation would ban three types of taxes that single out the Internet: taxes on Internet access, multiple taxation by two or more states of a product or service bought over the Internet, and taxes that treat Internet purchases differently from other types of sales.
"It's important that we take a stand right here and now to make sure that we say that the United States of America and the Internet will be a no-tax zone, now and forever," said Senator George Allen, a Virginia Republican and one of the bill's sponsors. Senators Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and Representative Christopher Cox (news, bio, voting record), a California Republican, co-sponsored the bill.
The bill would extend a current Internet tax moratorium that is due to expire in 2007.
Supporters of the Internet Tax Non-Discrimination Act in 2004 attempted to permanently ban what supporters call "discriminatory" Internet taxes, but a group of U.S. senators held up the bill because of concerns that it would stop states from taxing forms of telecommunications transmitted by Internet Protocol, as more telecom providers move traffic to voice over IP. In a compromise, the Senate approved a version of the bill that extended a five-year ban against Internet-only taxes levied by states and local governments.
Allen said this bill does not address the issue of VoIP taxation: "That will be a separate battle." Also, an existing grandfather-clause compromise that allows some current state Internet taxes to expire in 2005 and others in 2007 would remain in place.
Supporters of the tax ban say access and other Internet taxes would slow U.S. adoption of broadband services, potentially slowing the U.S. economy. "The Internet Tax Freedom law has created a level playing field, stopping unfair and discriminatory tax schemes that would wall off the Internet to many consumers and make e-commerce impossible for online business owners," Wyden said in a statement. "Internet users and entrepreneurs who breathed a sigh of relief at this law's extension should have the security of knowing its protections will never go away."
Allen also has introduced another bill to prevent Congress from extending a long-standing telecommunications tax to Internet access. In January, Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation suggested an expansion of a 3 percent federal excise tax on telecommunications to Internet traffic, including e-mail and data services.
Erik Larkin of Medill News Service contributed to this report.
Written by: Jay Wrolstad, cio-today.com
Document specialist Adobe Systems (Nasdaq: ADBE - news) today announced the purchase of digital content provider Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR - news) in an all-stock deal worth some US$3.4 billion that should help Adobe push into the mobile market and pave the way for an array of applications integrating text, audio and video.
Adobe, the company that created, and is synonymous with, the widely used PDF computer document format technology, contends that bringing Macromedia into the fold will spur development of software for creating, managing and delivering content and across multiple operating systems, devices and media.
Going Mobile
"This is all about gaining access to mobile devices," said Yankee Group analyst Michael Goodman. While Adobe currently is tied to the PC, he said, portable devices present a new set of software integration and security issues, areas in which Macromedia can provide assistance.
Goodman suggested that the merger is a smart move for both parties, because Macromedia has little experience with digital text applications while Adobe needs to move into the multimedia realm. "Each has strengths in different areas," he said.
And combining those strengths presents opportunities to take audio and video files beyond the Web and into PDF documents. "That's a completely new opportunity," said Goodman.
Merger Mania
This merger also reflects a trend among major software developers, following Oracle's (Nasdaq: ORCL - news) acquisition of PeopleSoft (Nasdaq: PSFT - news) and Symantec's (Nasdaq: SYMC - news) purchase of Veritas (Nasdaq: VRTS - news) in multibillion-dollar deals.
Under the terms of the agreement, which has been approved by both boards of directors, Macromedia stockholders will receive 0.69 shares of Adobe common stock for every share of Macromedia common stock.
The acquisition, which is expected to close in the fall, is subject to approval by the stockholders of both companies and government regulatory agencies.
In the combined company, Adobe chief executive Bruce Chizen will continue as CEO, and Stephen Elop, president and CEO of Macromedia, will join Adobe as president of worldwide field operations.
In morning trading, Adobe stock dipped on the news, while Macromedia stock rose a few points.
Document specialist Adobe Systems (Nasdaq: ADBE - news) today announced the purchase of digital content provider Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR - news) in an all-stock deal worth some US$3.4 billion that should help Adobe push into the mobile market and pave the way for an array of applications integrating text, audio and video.
Adobe, the company that created, and is synonymous with, the widely used PDF computer document format technology, contends that bringing Macromedia into the fold will spur development of software for creating, managing and delivering content and across multiple operating systems, devices and media.
Going Mobile
"This is all about gaining access to mobile devices," said Yankee Group analyst Michael Goodman. While Adobe currently is tied to the PC, he said, portable devices present a new set of software integration and security issues, areas in which Macromedia can provide assistance.
Goodman suggested that the merger is a smart move for both parties, because Macromedia has little experience with digital text applications while Adobe needs to move into the multimedia realm. "Each has strengths in different areas," he said.
And combining those strengths presents opportunities to take audio and video files beyond the Web and into PDF documents. "That's a completely new opportunity," said Goodman.
Merger Mania
This merger also reflects a trend among major software developers, following Oracle's (Nasdaq: ORCL - news) acquisition of PeopleSoft (Nasdaq: PSFT - news) and Symantec's (Nasdaq: SYMC - news) purchase of Veritas (Nasdaq: VRTS - news) in multibillion-dollar deals.
Under the terms of the agreement, which has been approved by both boards of directors, Macromedia stockholders will receive 0.69 shares of Adobe common stock for every share of Macromedia common stock.
The acquisition, which is expected to close in the fall, is subject to approval by the stockholders of both companies and government regulatory agencies.
In the combined company, Adobe chief executive Bruce Chizen will continue as CEO, and Stephen Elop, president and CEO of Macromedia, will join Adobe as president of worldwide field operations.
In morning trading, Adobe stock dipped on the news, while Macromedia stock rose a few points.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols - eWEEK
Outlook is a security-hole wolf dressed in an e-mail client's sheep clothing. But many companies still won't, or can't, move from it because Outlook is also their group calendaring and address book application. In short, it's a core desktop application for them.
This point was driven home to me when I spoke recently at a meeting of CIOs, chief technology officers and e-mail administrators at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. These people run serious e-mail systems with hundreds of thousands of users.
All of them knew that Outlook has more than its fair share of security problems; most of them would at least consider an alternative. Indeed, some of them already use alternatives like Qualcomm's Eudora, but the vast majority use Outlook. As one said to me, "What else is there?"
Good question.
While there are many good open-source e-mail clients, like the Mozilla Foundation's Thunderbird, Isamet's Mulberry and Hiroyuki Yamamoto's Sylpheed, these clients are really replacements for Outlook Express, not Outlook.
Of the programs that do try to compete with Outlook, some, like the Open Source Applications Foundation's Chandler, have been moving forward at a very slow rate. After more than two years, Chandler has only just reached version 0.5.
Mozilla itself offers some of the features an Outlook killer would need, but the Mozilla Foundation has decided to freeze its development.
Read more here about Mozilla's decision to cease developing its namesake suite.
Other such projects, like Mozilla Lightning, which is to combine Thunderbird with the Sunbird calendaring, are barely on the launching pad. I have real hopes for this project, but I don't expect to see mature code for at least a year.
Now, as it happens, I think there is already one excellent Outlook replacement: Novell's Novell Evolution 2.0, formerly Ximian Evolution.
It's got everything it takes to be an Outlook killer: all the popular mail-protocol support, Exchange 2000 and 2003 e-mail and calendaring support, GroupWise support, and, thanks to SpamAssassin, it now has good spam protection.
There's only one big—and one minor—problem. The minor one is that Evolution 2.0 is only easily available on the SuSE/Novell Linux family. On most Linux platforms, unless you want to build it yourself, you're probably running, as I am on my Xandros 3 desktop, an older version like 1.4.6, which doesn't have the most desirable interoperability features.
The big problem though is that there's no Windows version. Yes, in a Linux-lover's ideal world, everyone would be running a Linux desktop. It's not going to happen any time soon, guys.
In the meantime, an open-source Outlook replacement for Windows would go a long way toward making IT managers think more kindly about a Linux desktop.
It looks, however, like help may be on the way. In January, Novell hired Tor Lillqvist, a noted developer who's known for his work in bringing Linux programs to Windows. His main job at Novell is going to be to port Evolution to Windows.
As Lillqvist writes, "No, you cannot run Evolution on Windows yet. No, there isn't anything [for end-users] to 'beta test' yet." However, he is making good progress.
That's good news for anyone who wants Outlook's functionality without the pain of constantly monitoring its fragile security.
Still, a real Outlook replacement isn't here yet. If you're a developer and you really want to help open source make inroads in the Windows world, you should be working hard to get mature versions of Chandler, Lightning or Evolution to run on Windows as soon as possible.
Even more so than Firefox, a real Outlook replacement could make a big difference in persuading corporate IT departments that now is the right time for open source on the desktop.
eWEEK.com Senior Editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has been using and writing about operating systems since the late '80s and thinks he may just have learned something about them along the way.
Outlook is a security-hole wolf dressed in an e-mail client's sheep clothing. But many companies still won't, or can't, move from it because Outlook is also their group calendaring and address book application. In short, it's a core desktop application for them.
This point was driven home to me when I spoke recently at a meeting of CIOs, chief technology officers and e-mail administrators at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. These people run serious e-mail systems with hundreds of thousands of users.
All of them knew that Outlook has more than its fair share of security problems; most of them would at least consider an alternative. Indeed, some of them already use alternatives like Qualcomm's Eudora, but the vast majority use Outlook. As one said to me, "What else is there?"
Good question.
While there are many good open-source e-mail clients, like the Mozilla Foundation's Thunderbird, Isamet's Mulberry and Hiroyuki Yamamoto's Sylpheed, these clients are really replacements for Outlook Express, not Outlook.
Of the programs that do try to compete with Outlook, some, like the Open Source Applications Foundation's Chandler, have been moving forward at a very slow rate. After more than two years, Chandler has only just reached version 0.5.
Mozilla itself offers some of the features an Outlook killer would need, but the Mozilla Foundation has decided to freeze its development.
Read more here about Mozilla's decision to cease developing its namesake suite.
Other such projects, like Mozilla Lightning, which is to combine Thunderbird with the Sunbird calendaring, are barely on the launching pad. I have real hopes for this project, but I don't expect to see mature code for at least a year.
Now, as it happens, I think there is already one excellent Outlook replacement: Novell's Novell Evolution 2.0, formerly Ximian Evolution.
It's got everything it takes to be an Outlook killer: all the popular mail-protocol support, Exchange 2000 and 2003 e-mail and calendaring support, GroupWise support, and, thanks to SpamAssassin, it now has good spam protection.
There's only one big—and one minor—problem. The minor one is that Evolution 2.0 is only easily available on the SuSE/Novell Linux family. On most Linux platforms, unless you want to build it yourself, you're probably running, as I am on my Xandros 3 desktop, an older version like 1.4.6, which doesn't have the most desirable interoperability features.
The big problem though is that there's no Windows version. Yes, in a Linux-lover's ideal world, everyone would be running a Linux desktop. It's not going to happen any time soon, guys.
In the meantime, an open-source Outlook replacement for Windows would go a long way toward making IT managers think more kindly about a Linux desktop.
It looks, however, like help may be on the way. In January, Novell hired Tor Lillqvist, a noted developer who's known for his work in bringing Linux programs to Windows. His main job at Novell is going to be to port Evolution to Windows.
As Lillqvist writes, "No, you cannot run Evolution on Windows yet. No, there isn't anything [for end-users] to 'beta test' yet." However, he is making good progress.
That's good news for anyone who wants Outlook's functionality without the pain of constantly monitoring its fragile security.
Still, a real Outlook replacement isn't here yet. If you're a developer and you really want to help open source make inroads in the Windows world, you should be working hard to get mature versions of Chandler, Lightning or Evolution to run on Windows as soon as possible.
Even more so than Firefox, a real Outlook replacement could make a big difference in persuading corporate IT departments that now is the right time for open source on the desktop.
eWEEK.com Senior Editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has been using and writing about operating systems since the late '80s and thinks he may just have learned something about them along the way.
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