Yahoo! music boss backs Jobs' anti-DRM stance

Amid all the brouhaha following Apple CEO Steve Jobs recent call for the record industry to abandon copy protection, it is easy to forget that the head of Yahoo!'s music service has long been advocating DRM-free downloads. Dave Goldberg told the Music 2.0 conference this time last year that DRM was holding back the growth of the digital music market and in the wake of Jobs' appeal to the labels reiterated those comments. ...more

Xbox is $1 billion risk

Microsoft's Xbox games console could cost the company $1 billion before it begins to break even, according to a Morgan Stanley analyst. Analyst Mary Meeker said that as long as the Xbox is 'reasonably successful' then Microsoft can expect to break even in 2004. Xbox launches in the US on 15 November for the same price as Sony's established PlayStation 2, but at $100 more than Nintendo's GameCube, so there is no guarantee that it will be 'reasonably successful'. ...more

Thunderbird 0.3, Mozilla 1.5 released

The Mozilla Organisation has released updated versions of its standalone email client and its flagship Internet software. Thunderbird 0.3 [pictured] fixes a number of bugs, listed in the release notes, has improved stability and increased IMAP speed 'several times'. ...more

Black Hat hackers boast of Badseed wireless attack

Security researchers yesterday demonstrated a wide-reaching wireless vulnerability at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas. Although the kit used was an un-named wireless card plugged into an Apple MacBook, the vulnerability exploited is platform agnostic. 'Don't think that just because we're attacking an Apple, that the flaw is in Apple,' said David Maynor, SecureWorks Researcher. ...more

Tax payers set to foot snooping bill

The cost of storing traffic data in order to comply with 'snooping' legislation could come from the tax payer. With ISPs and network operators obliged to keep traffic data (information on your telephone and Internet usage) far longer than the three-month limit currently set for business purposes, the Home Office and associations representing ISPs and network operators are negotiating to decide how to split the cost of maintaining this data. A spokesperson for the Home Office told us that consultations were in progress seeking to create a statutory instrument of Section 14 of RIPA with which the Home Office would make 'reasonable contributions' to the maintenance of ISP and telco data storage systems, and that agencies (such as the police or Inland Revenue) would pay for each Section 12 notice served requesting traffic data. ...more