Computer Weekly articles from May 2009

Computer Weekly archives from May 2009

Manage IT.
May 5, 2009... Our municipal buildings date back to the 1970s, and use power supplies from the same period. Since moving in there we had simply gone out and bought the hardware we needed, when we needed it. The result was that we actually had no idea how many...

News.(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Social network site Facebook was attacked for the second day running by a worm that lured members to visit a false Facebook page that stole their usernames and passwords when they logged in. Facebookers receive a message, purporting to come...

News.(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... The government made the right decision by ruling out a single, central database to store all communications data in the UK, former home secretary David Blunkett said today. Technology is not there yet to guarantee the kind of security...

News.(information technology services industry rankingsc)(Company rankings)
May 5, 2009... Information and communications technology companies make up six of the top 10 and 24 of the world's 100 most valuable brands, according to the latest BrandZ survey by Millward Brown Optimor. The world's most valuable brand is Google, which...

News.
May 5, 2009... Datawarehouse and business analytics firm Teradata plans to unveil a data storage management system around the middle of next year that will speed up customers' ability to access large volumes of data at high speed from different types of...

News.(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Consumers will support the government's plan to introduce a universal 2Mbps broadband service, says the Communications Consumer panel. In a letter to communications minister Stephen Carter, who is preparing the final report on Digital...

News.(Ericsson Telecom A/S)(Financial report)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Quarterly profit at Ericsson has slumped by 35% year-on-year as the vendor felt the impact of costs associated with 5,000 job cuts across the business. All told, the Swedish communications giant made net profit of SEK540m ([pounds...

News.(J.D. Williams Ltd. to invest in technology)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... The UK's biggest catalogue sales firm, JD Williams, is investing in technology to allow it to track its customers in real time as they browse its website. The move will allow the firm to identify what interests each customer and to send...

News.(online social network Twitter)
May 5, 2009... Embattled van maker LDV has turned to social networking media such as blogs and Twitter to keep staff, suppliers and sales agents up to date as the firm tries to negotiate its way out of a financial crisis. Chris Linfoot, LDV's CIO, said...

News.(LDV to use Twitter to negotiate its way out of financial crises)
May 5, 2009... Truck maker LDV has turned to social networking media to keep staff, suppliers and sales agents up to date as the firm tries to negotiate its way out of a financial crisis. Chris Linfoot, LDV's CIO, said blogs and Twitter were the fastest...

News.(contract)
May 5, 2009... NHS Trusts in the south of England are to have a choice of suppliers following the termination of Fujitsu's contract last year, the Department of Health's CIO confirmed today. Services supplier Fujitsu was to have installed the Cerner...

News.
May 5, 2009... A group of London hospitals has lost track of patients who have missed treatment under the Government's 18-week wait target, after problems with pioneering NHS IT systems. The difficulties are the most serious of any major implementation...

News.(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... On 3 May 1978 Gary Thuerk, a marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corp, sent an invitation to the several thousand people on Arpanet, inviting them to come and see DEC's latest and greatest kit, thus spawning internet spam and a business...

News.(security in business enterprises)(Survey)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Most UK businesses (71%) think security is the biggest threat to cloud computing, a survey of IT chiefs has found. Most organisations would like to enable remote working, but security concerns is still a stumbling block, said Steve Watts,...

News.(negotiations between Microsoft and Office of Government Commerce)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... The software trade has poured cold water over the government's plan to reuse old software licences. Companies specialising in software licensing have urged the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) to let the private sector manage the reuse...

News.(internet security)
May 5, 2009... Cybersecurity is not the responsibility of government, business or individuals, but can be achieved only through a partnership of these, attendees of Infosec Europe heard in London today. There is little agreement in the UK about who should...

News.(software patents)
May 5, 2009... A decision on whether software inventions should be patented in Europe is nearing, pending the outcome of the European Patent Office (EPO) Enlarged Board of Appeal's consideration of the issue, writes Nick Wallin, patent attorney at Withers &...

News.(impact of recession)(Survey)
May 5, 2009... Recessions don't last forever and businesses that cut back on IT indescriminantly are likely to be at competitive disadvantage in the future. According to research from business consultancy Deloitte, 84% of cost cutting is being driven...

News.(technologies used by cybercriminals)
May 5, 2009... The speed, stealth and sophistication with which organised, professional cybercriminals are able to steal personal and company data was a recurring theme at Infosecurity Europe 2009 from the very start. Cybercriminals are using increasingly...

Business & technology.(data security)
May 5, 2009... Whatever else you do, "Assume your smartphone will be lost or stolen and plan accordingly," says David Porter, head of security and risk at Detica consultancy. "I see far more careless people losing their phones, than identity thieves out...

News.(European Parliament)
May 5, 2009... Skype customers, internet users and internet service providers could lose their right to communicate and wander freely on the internet if the European Parliament passes amendments to the Telecoms Package being negotiated between the European...

Opinion & letters.(airport security)
May 5, 2009... The world's airports have become a hotspot for laptop theft and data loss but the deployment of some simple, yet effective security measures can prevent your organisation's confidential data ending up in the wrong hands, writes William Pound,...

Opinion & letters.(managing security)
May 5, 2009... Choosing a good security policy is always working out a tradeoff between price, security and convenience, picking any two of the three parameters. Passwords are often the cheapest method of authenticating users as compared to smart cards or...

Opinion & letters.(network security)
May 5, 2009... Limit access to those who need it In SMBs, employees given full privileges and access to the network or devices that they do not need to do their job. This is simply asking for trouble as whilst it is likely that your employees are honest,...

Opinion & letters.(virtual machine)
May 5, 2009... The adoption rate of virtual machines has exploded at most organisations, creating a boom in logical servers and devices connected to the network, with many organisations not accounting for the fact that each needs to be individually...

Opinion & letters.
May 5, 2009... Networking sites Twitter and Facebook are two of the fastest growing Web 2.0 collaboration applications in the world. And, where they once kept a younger generation of technology-fluent "generation Ys" (Gen Y) up late at night, they are now...

News.
May 5, 2009... A blog posting on F-Secure has ridiculed the supposedly high level of security used on Facebook. The posting claims that the questions Facebook asks users who wish to contact its staff are too easy to crack. "Mother's birthday? - Father's...

News.(Europe to increase investments)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Europe has announced its intention to become a world leader in high-risk IT research with plans for mind-controlled wheelchairs, computers that mimic the brain, and unlimited computing power. The European Commission thinks the region needs...

News.(security in business enterprises)
May 5, 2009... Businesses are not doing enough to ensure the security of open source, outsourced code and commercial applications, a study by Forrester Consulting has found. Of the 180 UK and US businesses surveyed, 62% had been hit by security breaches...

News.(government to plan budget cuts for IT companies)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Businesses and government departments are planning huge cuts to their IT recruitment budgets which could see some companies cutting 100% of their temporary staff cut and 10% of permanent workers made redundant. But cutting IT staff when...

News.(UK government to invest in IT)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... The UK government can create and retain 700,000 jobs if it invests [pounds sterling]15bn on IT to improve the broadband, utility and transport infrastructures, according to a study published by the London School of Economics and Political...

News.(NHS Trust)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Fourteen NHS Trusts have breached the Data Protection Act in the past six months, according to the Information Commisioner's Office (ICO). Four new cases announced today serve as a "stark reminder" to all NHS organisations that sensitive...

News.(financial report of SAP AG)(Financial report)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... SAP's first quarter financial results released yesterday confirm that large software suppliers are not immune from the effects of the economic downturn. Although total revenue was only 3% down from the same period last year at...

News.(outsourcing)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... The total value of outsourcing contracts in the first quarter of this year dropped by 44% compared to the same period a year ago despite a growth in the number of deals. According to the latest research carried out by sourcing consultancy...

News.(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Amazon Web Services (AWS) has begun offering grants of $100 per student for free usage of its cloud infrastructure services in eligible courses at accredited universities. The AWS in Education programme aims to help the academic community...

News.(ASOS)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Online fashion retailer ASOS is sailing through the recession with sales up 104% in the 12 months to March 31. The clothing website has defied the downturn in its pre-close trading statement. Sales grew to [pounds sterling]165m and the...

News.(IT investments)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... The next wave of IT investmentswill be aimed at achieving efficiency across the business, attendees of Infosecurity Europe 2009 in London have heard. "This is a great opportunity for IT to engage with the business to help take it forward...

News.(internet service providers)
May 5, 2009... The government may require internet service providers (ISPs) to retain all communications data that runs across their networks, including that of third party overseas providers. Home secretary Jacqui Smith has ruled out the possibility of a...

News.(IT security)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Cyber attackers are working much faster to exploit application code vulnerabilties and IT security is being overwhelmed, according to a study of vulnerabilities on 80 million IP addresses. Eighty per cent of vulnerability exploits are...

News.(survey reveals investment in security to increase in government departments)(Survey)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Only 6% of IT directors in government departments would invest in security if theirbudget was increased, according to a Citrix Government Forum survey released at Infosecurity Europe 2009 in London. This is in sharp contrast to a similar...

News.(government departments to cut IT spending)
May 5, 2009... Businesses and government departments are storing up problems in the future by cutting IT spending to meet recession driven targets, according to the latest research report from business management company Deloitte. Seventy three per cent...

News.(consumer protection in government departments)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... The government is gearing up to give e-consumers similar levels of protection over fraud and crime as high street consumers. Consumer Affairs minister Gareth Thomas said the current system is designed to protect consumers on the high...

News.(Facebook Inc. plans to give third party developers greater access to user generated content)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Facebook is expected to announce today that it plans to give third-party developers greater access to user-generated content to enable them to build new services, according to the Wall Street Journal. This will mean developers can build...

News.(Swiss women lost job because she used Facebook on work)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... A Swiss woman has lost her job because she used Facebook when she was off work sick. Insurance company Nationale Suisse said the woman had previously told he employer that she had a migraine and had to lie in a dark room. The company...

News.(Google Inc.)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... US antitrust enforcers are investigating Google's settlement with publishers over its book-scanning project, but the internet firm has defended its position. Google reached an agreement in October to create a $125m fund to pay authors to...

News.(Twitter security)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Twitter's security was thrown into doubt as details emerged of how a French hacker obtained access to a Twitter staff account, allowing him to view user accounts on the micro-blogging site. The hacker, known as "Hacker Croll", claimed that...

News.(International Business Machines Corp. to introduce WebSphere CloudBurst)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... IBM has introduced a hardware appliance that provides access to software virtual images and patterns which it says can be used to build a private cloud. Called WebSphere CloudBurst, the appliance aims to help IT departments develop, test...

News.(outsourcing)
May 5, 2009... The shift away from security products to services at Infosecurity Europe in London shows that the industry is maturing, says Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer at BT. Clients care less about the details than about the end...

News.(FirstBase Software)
May 5, 2009... A serious flaw in the way ecommerce sites implement secure internet access based though the secure HTTPS protocol could put customers' credit card details at risk, it was claimed today. Internet users are aware that they should only give...

News.(online fraud)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Online fraud is now a well established business with hackers offering fraud as a service and custom hacking paid on a per use basis, according to Andrew Moloney, marketing director at RSA. Speaking at InfoSecurity 2009 at Earls Court today,...

News.(Intel Corp.)
May 5, 2009... John Johnson, vice-president and co-chief information officer at Intel, has an annual budget of $1.2bn and is responsible for 5,500 IT staff across more than 50 countries. Efficiency is one of Johnson's key drivers. Each year, the IT group...

News.(Internet guru Nicholas Negroponte)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Internet guru Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of One Laptop per Child, has praised the Nominet Trust for providing six grants to help society through the development of the internet. He said, "The future of the internet relies on...

News.(London 2012 Olympic Games)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... MPs are set to report on whether the IT security at the London 2012 Olympic Games will be up to scratch. The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) announced a review of the plans for IT at the Games. The warning was...

News.(Home Office accused with advertising company Phorm)
May 5, 2009... The Home Office has been accused of colluding with controversial online advertising company Phorm. E-mails were allegedly sent between the two in which the Home Office discusses Phorm's "informal guidance" to the public on whether the...

News.(SAP AG vice-president Bill Wohl)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... SAP appears to have listened and taken on board user feedback on how it should charge for its maintenance contract. The ERP company and the SAP User Group Executive Network (Sugen), a global federation of 12 key SAP user groups, have...

News.(SAP AG)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... The SAP UK & Ireland User Group has welcomed SAP's decision to provide benchmarking and key performance indicators (KPIs) for its maintenance. SAP and the SAP User Group Executive Network (Sugen), a global federation of 12 user groups,...

News.(SAP AG)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... SAP has fleshed out new terms and conditions for Enterprise Support following a run-in with the SAP user group. Last year,SAP triggered a backlashwhen it increased the cost of software support for its customers by nearly 30%. Since...

News.(high salaries of IT workers)
May 5, 2009... UK businesses are still investing in IT security professionals and paying them competitive salaries, despite budget cuts in the economic downturn, a survey has revealed. Fifty six per cent of these workers have been given a pay increase in...

News.(Twitter)
May 5, 2009... A British web developer has created an application that can disguise the fact that workers are using Twitter at work. Many businesses are suspicious that Web 2.0 social networking applications are causing employees to waste time at work....

News.(virtualization)
May 5, 2009... Virtualisation is widely regarded as the best way to build datacentres, because it requires fewer servers, which helps lower IT costs and energy use. Now the technology is making inroads into disaster recovery. Disaster recovery normally...

News.(International Business Machines Corp. to develop question answering system named Watson)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... IBM scientists have been working on a Question Answering system, codenamed Watson, which they say will be able to understand complex questions and answer with enough precision and speed to compete on a TV games show. Like Wolfram Alpha,...

News.(Microsoft's Windows 7)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Users can now download the Release Candidate of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system. In an unprecedented move, Microsoft is allowing anyone to try out the latest pre-release version of Windows for 12 months unitl 1 June 2010. Key...

News.(Microsoft Windows 7)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Windows 7 release candidate will be available to a select few later this week. Subscribers to Microsoft Download Network and Technet will be able to download the release candidate of Microsoft's latest operating system on Thursday, Windows...

News.(WolframAlpha)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... A natural language-based search tool which claims to offer an alternative approach to Google for searching information, is due out in May. The tool, Wolfram Alpha, is built around a vast repository of curated data from public and licensed...

News.(Yahoo Inc. to cut 600 jobs)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Yahoo is believed to be letting 600 staff go today, according to web reports. The company reported it would be making cuts following its poor financial results. But according to the LaLaWag blog, the layoffs have already started. "Most of...

News.(Twitter)(Brief article)
May 5, 2009... Twitter will struggle to grow as a business if it fails to convert the large volume of people that try it out into loyal long-term customers. More than 60% of people that sign up to Twitter stop using it by the next month, according to...

News.(information technology)
May 5, 2009... Are men or women better at IT? The old debate has flared up again in recent weeks following a panel discussion about 'Balancing Tech Culture: Getting more women involved in tech start-ups,' writes Liz Benison, Chief Operating Officer,...

News.(Huddle.net to launch online collaboration application)
May 12, 2009... Collaboration service Huddle.net, which supports the LinkedIn and Facebook social network sites, has launched its online collaboration application on Ning, the platform for creating social networks. Huddle Workspaces is now a part of the...

News.(FTSE)
May 12, 2009... A man recently walked offthestreet and into a FTSE financial services firm where he set up shop and gained access to his first highly sensitive document within 20 minutes. Colin Greenlees, a security consultant at Siemens Enterprise...

News.(middleware)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... Middleware suppliers are prospering despite the downturn, the latest data from analyst Gartner has revealed. Revenue in the application infrastructure and middleware (AIM) software market totalled $15.1bn worldwide in 2008, a 6.9% increase...

News.(Microsoft Corp. to cut 5000 jobs)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... Microsoft is making a second round of redundancies as part of its plans to cut 5,000 jobs. The company said a number of UK positions have been affected, representing about 5% of its 2,880 people based in the UK. Microsoft said, "We...

News.(The News Corporation Ltd.)(Financial report)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to his newspapers' websites, with plans set to be put in motion within a year. Publishing companies are facing plunging advertising revenues and falling reader numbers, leading to a...

News.(pilots not to take part in ID card trials)(Survey)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... Pilots are refusing to take part in the upcoming ID card trials for airside workers. 18-month trials are due to start this autumn at Manchester and London City Airports, but the union, which represents 10,000 commercial pilots, says its...

News.(John Lewis Partnership PLC)
May 12, 2009... John Lewis is trying to tame its software suppliers, to cease their "unfair" licensing practices, put an end to "upgrade-itus", and block their hypnotic influence on its IT department. The retailer wants to put software suppliers in their...

News.(Hewlett-Packard Co. to partner with Research In Motion Ltd.)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... HP is working with Research In Motion (RIM) to deliver a portfolio of business mobility products for enterprise users based on the BlackBerry platform. The two companies will work on providing BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 to...

News.(Survey)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... A communications gap between businesses and software developers is leading to too many software failures, according to research. In a survey of 100 software developers, carried out by software testing firm Sogeti, 93 said businesses are not...

News.(WolframAlpha)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... Wolfram Alpha, a search tool which is due to launch this month, is set to revolutionise how businesses and users generate reports based on information gathered across the internet and corporate networks. Stephen Wolfram, founder and CEO of...

News.(Stephen Wolfram founder and CEO of Wolfram Research )
May 12, 2009... Stephen Wolfram founder and CEO of Wolfram Research has given a European demonstration of his company's Wolfram Alpha search tool. Wolfram believes the world can be represented in a computational form as a mathematical model. He claims it...

News.(British Airways PLC to cut 25% energy used by IT systems)
May 12, 2009... British Airwaysis on course tocut the amount of energy usedby its IT systems by 25% by 2011. Paul Coby, chief information officer atBA, told a green ITconference in London last week that an independent audit of the airline'ssystems found...

News.(storage of information )(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... Information on innocent people could be kept for up to 12 years on the DNA database under plans announced last week. The modified plans will require the DNA profiles of thousands of innocent people to be stored for six years, with the time...

News.(cyber crimes)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... Cybercriminals are creating specialised search engines to drive users to malicious websites created to distribute malware. This reflects the growing professionalisation of cybercrime, said PandaLabs.One malicious search engine it found...

News.(Mozilla Corp.)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... Mozilla, the open source organisation behind the Firefox web browser, has complained that Windows 7 is too closely integrated with Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. After downloading Windows 7 RC1, Mozilla believes Microsoft is using...

Opinion & letters.(corporate policies on data security)
May 19, 2009... Unless you believe everything depicted in the TV show 24, employees are not recruited by foreign intelligence services, and data exfiltration is due to mistakes rather then malicious intent, writes Raj Samani, vice-president of communications...

News.(internet security)
May 19, 2009... Britain's cybersecurity arrangements will receive intense scrutiny from government agencies when the final report on Digital Britain is published in June. The flooding of a key BT 21st Century Network (21CN) switch last year by a blocked...