Film industry targets single-file sharers in first wave of lawsuits

The US movie industry has launched its first lawsuits against unauthorised file sharers and is taking a hard line. The Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) has announced that seven major studios have filed more than 200 suits, requesting the courts to order ISPs to reveal the names of the alleged sharers, currently identified only by their IP addresses. Unlike its record industry equivalent, which led the way in prosecuting file sharers, the MPAA is not merely pursuing the high-quantity sharers. ...more

Novell CTO: Linux applications are under development

Novell became a major Linux promoter worldwide with the acquisition of the Ximian and SuSE Linux operating systems in the second half of 2003. Alan F. Nugent, CTO of Novell, explained that the open-source operating systems have not only seen broadening acceptance in server applications, but also in a wide range of other IT applications. ...more

Mac retains integrity under hack test

A competition to hack a Mac system and deface a Web page has ended in success for University of Michigan system administrators who aimed to prove the fundamental security of OS X. Despite traffic that peaked at over 30Mbps, mostly comprising web exploit scripts, ssh dictionary attacks and scanning tools and including two denial of service attacks, the Mac mini was not breached and remained up throughout the 38 hour duration of the test. The system received half a million requests, with 400 login attempts via ssh. ...more

Security threat from open software

Open source software used in Unix and Linux systems is now the main source of security vulnerabilities, according to a new report. Microsoft products are no longer subject to the greatest number of security advisories published by CERT, the Computer Emergency Response Team. In the first 10 months of 2002 16 of the 29 vulnerabilities reported by CERT were related to Unix-based software. ...more

Xbox chips work a charm for NVIDIA profits

NVIDIA has reported results for the latest quarter, with a net income of $24.2mn compared with $5.3mn for the preceding quarter. ...more