Singapore clamps down on unauthorised file sharing

Police in Singapore have arrested three people charged with sharing more than 20,000 files. It is the country's first clampdown on unauthorised sharing. An amendment to the country's Copyright Act has made large scale file sharing a criminal offence; this contrast with the US and Europe where the record industry has only has recourse through civil courts. ...more

Microsoft puts a price on virus writers' heads

Microsoft has announced it will offer $250,000 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the authors of the SoBig and Blaster viruses. The announcement came as part of a $5mn fund given to US and EU law enforcement agencies to help them crack down on those responsible for creating the swathe of worms and other malicious programs that have exploited flaws in Microsoft products this year. Indeed the Blaster worm was configured to launch a denial of service attack against windowsupdate. ...more

Supporting the encryption of XML

W3C - the body that looks after Internet standards - has announced the launch of the XML Encryption Activity. Its aim is to specify the data model, syntax, and processing necessary to best help encrypt XML content. Because XML (the eXtensible Markup Language) is designed to preserve the logic of data - rather than be a literal mark up language, such as HTML - the encryption could be used wherever sensitive data is to be transmitted. ...more

Gates outlines Longhorn

With all the talk of delays to the final release dates of Microsoft's next version of Windows - Longhorn - the operating system must have appeared to have taken a giant leap forward to attendees at the PDC conference yesterday, as Bill Gates and co demo many of the new features of the software. Bill Gates opened the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles with the words: 'Welcome to the "Longhorn" PDC'. Longhorn, Microsoft's code-name for its next version of Windows, was very much the headline act for the sold-out show. ...more

Microsoft dishes the dosh for games

Microsoft has just announced that it is going to include cash-back vouchers with three of its top selling PC titles. Money for old rope? I think not. Microsoft intends to include money-back vouchers with Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, Flight Simulator 2000 and Flight Simulator 2000 Professional Edition. ...more