Stories by Grant Gross

Commerce One patents auctioned for $15.5 million

About 40 patents owned by bankrupt software vendor Commerce One were auctioned for US$15.5 million in a San Francisco bankruptcy court Monday.

E-mail authentication: Cost, standards remain problems

E-mail authentication can help fight the growing spam e-mail problem, but vendors need to come up with a single, open standard to avoid confusion and crippling costs for small ISPs (Internet service providers), participants in a U.S. government summit said Wednesday.

Study: Information security field to grow steadily

The number of cybersecurity professionals is projected to grow at an annual compound rate of nearly 14 percent from now until 2008, according to a study released this week during the Computer Security Institute (CSI) trade show in Washington, D.C.

MS settles antitrust cases with Novell, CCIA

Microsoft on Monday announced antitrust settlements with Novell and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), ending years of legal wrangling.

Report: E-voting problems cause loss of votes

Electronic voting machine problems caused more than 4,500 votes to be lost in one North Carolina county during Tuesday's general election, and gave U.S. President George Bush more than 3,800 extra votes in an Ohio county, according to reports by the Associated Press.

Cingular completes AT&T Wireless acquisition

Cingular Wireless announced Tuesday that it completed a US$41 billion acquisition of AT&T Wireless Services, creating America's largest wireless carrier, following approval from two U.S. government agencies.

Group tallies more than 1,100 e-voting glitches

U.S. voters calling in to a toll-free number had reported more than 1,100 separate incidents of problems with electronic voting machines and other voting technologies by late Tuesday during the nationwide election.

Phishing attacks may be coming from your computer

Most phishing attempts come from about 1,000 compromised "zombie" computers owned by broadband customers, and the phishing attacks are likely generated by less than five phishing operations, according to a survey by CipherTrust Inc.

IBM, partners roll out ID management suite

IBM and four partners have announced what they call a "major breakthrough" in identity management designed to help business and government agencies protect assets, including IT systems and physical facilities, from unauthorised users.

Speakers debate RFID benefits, challenges

While speakers at the EPCglobal US conference Wednesday talked up the benefits of radio frequency identification (RFID), analysts watching RFID adoptions said many US companies are still waiting to see a clear reason to adopt the technology.

Sun, IBM, HP move ahead with RFID

A trio of major IT vendors all announced Monday plans to focus on and market radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies to their customers.

Infineon to pay $US160 million fine for DRAM price-fixing

Infineon Technologies, a German manufacturer of DRAM (dynamic RAM) has agreed to plead guilty and pay a US$160 million fine for attempting to fix prices in the DRAM market, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday.

DOJ announces online fraud convictions

Fifty-three people have been convicted and another 103 arrested in a huge US Department of Justice (DOJ) sweep for online fraud and other Internet-related crimes, the DOJ announced Thursday.

CA buys PestPatrol antispyware developer

Computer Associates International (CA) said Monday it acquired PestPatrol, a firm marketing antispyware software to enterprises, small businesses and individual consumers.

Survey: 86 percent of spam from US

Just under 86 percent of spam sent to 1,000 enterprises between May and July came from U.S. spammers, according to a survey by CipherTrust Inc.