US considers banning DRM rootkits

US government officials are considering introducing legislation if companies continue to distribute copy-protection measures that compromise computer security. The Department of Homeland Security's Border and Transportation Security Directorate warning followed the discovery last year that Sony BMG employed two different types of digital rights management (DRM) on music CDS sold in the US and both installed rootkit software on PCs that made them vulnerable. 'We need to think about how that situation could have been avoided in the first place,' said Jonathan Frenkel at the RSA computer security conference. ...more

Crazy Frog company fined ?40,000

The company that has inflicted the 'Crazy Frog' ringtone on the world has been fined ?40,000. The premium phone rate watchdog ICSTIS imposed the fine on mBlox after a Hearing Panel found that customers who thought they were making a one off payment for the ringtone were, in fact, signing up to a five pound a week subscription service. ICSTIS says it has received 338 complaints about the service from customers who claim they were duped into signing up for a subscription. ...more

Old media strong, new media weak for AOL

Reports of a slight profit by AOL/Time Warner are overshadowed by news that the company is to restate two years of financial results following an 'internal review'. The giant 'new media'/'old media' amalgam has announced that revenues for the two year period were overstated by $190m. The Internet division - America Online - accounted for $168m of this total, due to a reduction of advertising revenues. ...more

PGP Corp adds the Symantec AntiVirus engine to its encryption system

Encryption specialist PGP Corporation has added the Symantec AntiVirus Scan Engine to its PGP Universal message encryption product. The aim is to provide a full function solution to security conscious organisations. PGP Universal, which launched last year, is intended to automate the business of corporate encryption. ...more

Comment: Why Linux could be the new Copland

Copland was the operating system meant to succeed the Mac OS 7. But it just drifted along, its development largely driven by the demands of its engineers rather than the needs of Apple's customers. The project went on for over three years, with little notable progress. ...more