Botnets multiply in growing security threat

It's no secret that US and European companies are jumping up and down at the chance to outsource production to China. But so are hackers, according to email security specialist CipherTrust. Botnets - networks of thousands of infected computers that can be remotely controlled by a single attacker - have been a problem since 2002, when they first started be available commercially on the online black market. ...more

Ford uses banner ads for recall messages

Ford Motors has launched an unprecedented $3.5m online advertising campaign following a pair of recalls on its products. According to the media information company AdRelevance, Ford's advert - which carries the simple message, "For official Ford news on the Firestone recall, click here" - is currently the No 1 banner on the Web. ...more

OpenType format in running for MPEG-4 video specification

OpenType format is being considered by the International Standards Organization (ISO) as the basis for a new open font format for handling type within the MPEG-4 video specification. MPEG approved the standardisation of OpenType at the end of July and once the ISO gives the go-ahead in September work can begin on establishing an Open Font Format standard Developed jointly by Adobe and Microsoft, OpenType is a cross-platform format, which provides multilingual support and advanced typographic control. It is fully supported within both Mac OS X and Windows. ...more

www.noexpletiveshere.com

A US judge has ruled against a company that wanted to include obscene words in its domain name. The story begins when National A-1 Advertising of Philadelphia had 30 or so Web names rejected by Network Solutions, as they contained rude words and broke the company's decency policy. National A-1 Advertising weren't happy with this and decided to take Network Solutions to court for violating their rights to freedom of expression under the First Amendment. ...more

Apple misses analyst targets but Flash deals improve earnings

Apple's revenues grew 34 per cent over the past year, the company's latest financial results have revealed. For the three months to 1 April 2006, revenues totalled $4.36bn, yielding a profit of $410mn, a 41 per cent increase in earnings compared with the same quarter last year. ...more