Global software piracy hits 36 per cent

Thirty-six per cent of computer software in use worldwide during 2003 was pirated, according to the latest figures from the Business Software Alliance. While the global market in legitimate copies was worth $51bn, an additional $29bn was illegally installed. The piracy rate of 36 per cent, calculated by dividing the value of illegal software by the combined value of legal and illegal, was up two per cent on the previous year's figure. ...more

Keystroke-tapping worm runs riot

A virus is rapidly working its way across the Web, tracking the keystrokes of infected machines allowing hackers to pick up passwords, credit card details and other sensitive information. The W32.Badtrans. ...more

Canalys predicts smart phones to usurp PDAs

Research company Canalys has predicted that next year will see smart phones outselling handhelds by half a million. In the company's latest report, EMEA Mobile Device Trends 2003, Canalys predicts markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa to see 3.3 million smart phone devices shipped, compared with 2. ...more

Bloggers run risk of sack when talking shop

More than a third of bloggers have admitted to posting information or comments about their employer or colleagues and could get the sack as a result. In a survey carried out by YouGov for Croner, a human resources consultancy, of those who keep a personal blog, 39 per cent said they have made potentially sensitive or damaging posts. Gillian Dowling, technical consultant at Croner, explained that if a post is deemed to have damaged the employer's corporate image, it could lead to dismissal for the employee. ...more

BT broadband upgrade hiccough calmed

A BT system failure is believed to be caused a backlog of ADSL users waiting to be upgraded from 512Kbps to 1Mbps connections. Some 10,000 are believed to have been affected, with some losing the service, shortly after being upgraded. The outage coincided with the surge in upgrade applications that followed changes to the availability and range of ADSL services. ...more