FTC presses Passport

Microsoft and the FTC reach a 20-year agreement that will see the company face security audits every two years. Following complaints about Microsoft's single sign-in Passport account, the Federal Trade Commission and Microsoft yesterday agreed an order that will result in changes to the way Passport is described, changes within SP1 for XP and the adoption of a 'comprehensive information security program', which will undergo a third-party security audit within a year, and bi-annually thereafter. Brad Smith, general counsel for Microsoft, said in the conference call yesterday that the new measures, 'raise the bar for Microsoft and the entire industry,' and that 'the industry will need to keep pace with the precedent this case sets. ...more

Cutting the cost of ASDL installation

ISPs quick to pass on the savings to consumers. From 1 October, for three months, BT Wholesale is to halve the setup costs for IPStream, the broadband service it makes available to ISPs. The installation fee for its USB modem version of ADSL will be cut from ?150 to ?75, enabling ISPs to provide cheaper broadband offerings to the public. ...more

Virus Bulletin Conference: Security expert warns against online banking

Users should stop banking online, as it is too difficult to detect pharming and phishing attacks, a top security expert says. David Perry, global director of education at Trend Micro, spoke out about his complete distrust of online banking at the Virus Bulletin Conference in Dublin yesterday. 'I avoid banking online, you just cannot tell if you are experiencing a pharming attack,' he said, 'I would say to people "stop online banking". ...more

Intel goes open source with new speech-recognition software

Intel researchers have been working on a new form of speech recognition software. As well as processing sounds produced by a person, the system will visually process the face for further information. It will, in Intel's words, 'read lips'. ...more

Internet scams - the FBI view

A newly released FBI report analyses the prevalence and impact of Internet-based frauds on American life in 2001. At the top of the charts, by far, was Internet auction fraud, comprising 43 per cent of all referred complaints. The simple non-delivery of merchandise (or payments) accounted for 20 per cent of these complaints. ...more