OS X trojan can wipe Home directory, not a virus says Apple

An OS X trojan horse masquerading as a Microsoft Office 2004 installer can wipe your Home folder, security company Intego has announced. The AS.MW2004. ...more

BT Broadband turns to iTunes and iPods

New customers who sign up for BT Broadband or BT Yahoo! Broadband are being offered up to 40 free music downloads from the UK iTunes Music Store (iTMS). Apple charges 79p per track. Those who prefer the entry-level BT Broadband Basic package, however, will only be offered six tracks from iTMS. ...more

Apple on the menu of Creative patent suit

Creative has sued Apple for an alleged breach of its 'Zen' patent covering software menus on portable music players. The Singapore-based company, which is a distant second to Apple in terms of worldwide MP3 players sales, is seeking damages for what it says is 'willful infringement' of the patent and wants an injunction to stop Apple selling iPods. The patent describes a method for [see picture] organising music tracks in a hierarchical structure of categories and an interface that can be used to change the hierarchy, view track names, and select tracks for playback or other operations. ...more

BPI starts UK legal moves against file-sharers

The BPI (British Phonographic Industry) has announced that is lodging the UK's first formal court proceedings against alleged file sharers. Five individuals from across the country are being sued for damages arising from BPI claims that between them they made almost 9,000 songs available for others to download using peer-to-peer networks. They all rejected the opportunity to settle out of court. ...more

The Linux year in brief

Things augured well for the adoption of the Linux operating system even before the year had begun, with Red Hat moving into profit for the first time, fuelled by strong demand from the enterprise. But while the corporate world was beginning to rally round the platform, MandrakeSoft, vendor of one of the most user-friendly distributions, filed for the French equivalent of Chapter 11-style bankruptcy protection. Even worse followed shortly, when speculation that a company called SCO had hired a high profile lawyer to look into revenue opportunities from its Unix IP turned out to be entirely true. ...more