ISP forces two US spammers to pay up and shut down

Two US spammers have agreed to desist from sending anymore unsolicited mail and will also pay a cash sum. In the suit brought by US ISP EarthLink, members of a group known as the 'Alabama Spam Ring' were alleged to have 'engaged in a massive scheme of theft, spamming and spoofing', including using falsified names, false addresses and non-existent corporate entities to disguise the identities of individuals involved. Two of the group, Damon DeCrescenzo and David Burstyn, have now agreed to a court order forbidding them to continue these practices and to pay an undisclosed cash settlement. ...more

Maxtor launches 250GB upgrade kit

Home users with a passion for digital video and audio who keep hitting the ceiling on their current hard disk drive should check out the latest offering from Maxtor. The hard disk drive manufacturer says it is shipping the world's highest capacity ATA hard disk drive to UK high streets. The 5400rpm Maxtor drive included with each kit is aimed at applications such as multimedia production, storing huge audio, graphic files, digital photos and MP3s. ...more

Microsoft wins FAT patent

Microsoft has won its battle with the US Patents and Trademarks Office (USPTO) over its attempt to patent the File Allocation Table or FAT, which formed the basis of the management of disk storage in the days of MS-DOS. The company applied for a patent on FAT in 1996. However, because the format had become so widely used, there were fears that Microsoft would use the FAT licence to drive out competition. ...more

Sober virus resurfaces

Security companies are warning of a new variant of the bi-lingual Sober email worm. F-Secure says Sober-M was being spammed out last night in a bid to seed an epidemic. Sophos too reports small numbers of infections early this morning. ...more

Dell's factory installation of Red Hat Linux 7.1

Dell is now offering factory installation of Red Hat Linux on its workstations and servers. Red Hat Linux version 7.1 will be available as a pre-installed option across its full line of Dell PowerEdge servers and some Dell Precision workstations. ...more