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TOP STORIES FOR WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2004 Washington Post Company Buys Slate Magazine Microsoft Must Accept EU Sanctions Santy Worm Uses Google Search Guilty Plea Rejected by Judge in Spam Charge Teens Used Botnet to Lift Game Scores *** The next issue of Edupage will be January 3, 2005. *** WASHINGTON POST COMPANY BUYS SLATE MAGAZINE The Washington Post Company announced that it has completed its purchase of Slate, Microsoft's online magazine. Although the magazine only recently achieved break-even status on revenue of about $6 million per year, Slate won a National Magazine Award for its editorial content, and mainstream news organizations frequently cite it. The publication is also given credit for shaping Web publishing and introducing the use of hyperlinks and Web logs. Slate was founded in 1996 by Michael Kinsley with Microsoft's support. New York Times, 22 December 2004 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/22/business/media/22slate.html MICROSOFT MUST ACCEPT EU SANCTIONS The president of the European Union's Court of First Instance ruled that Microsoft must abide by sanctions imposed by EU regulators pending the results of an appeal. The sanctions require Microsoft to provide a version of its Windows operating system that does not include the company's Media Player software. Microsoft also must publish application programming interfaces to allow competitors to create server products compatible with Windows. The court ruled that Microsoft failed to prove that meeting the sanctions would cause "serious and irreparable harm" to its business. ComputerWorld, 22 December 2004 http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/story/0,10801,98474,00.html SANTY WORM USES GOOGLE SEARCH A new Internet worm called Santy (for Net-Worm.Perl.Santy.A) uses the Google search feature to find sites running unpatched versions of the phpBB Web forum software. The worm overwrites files to deface the forums. By targeting phpBB, the worm has caused major problems for businesses that use the software to handle customer-service and other support functions. Security research-based Kaspersky Lab called the worm "extra tricky" because the files on the server it replaces with its own code then infect other sites using the same host. The lab's advisory carries a Red Alert rating. Support forum administrators for phpBB advised users to upgrade to the newest release of the software immediately. eWeek, 21 December 2004 http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1744722,00.asp GUILTY PLEA REJECTED BY JUDGE IN SPAM CHARGE U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected a guilty plea by Jason Smathers, a former America Online software engineer accused of stealing 92 million e-mail address and screen names of AOL subscribers for use in Internet marketing. Hellerstein said he was unconvinced that Smathers violated the CAN-SPAM act, which targets senders of spam e-mail. The judge asked prosecutors to file a brief responding to this issue by January 12. Washington Post, 22 December 2004 (registration req'd) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18153-2004Dec21.html TEENS USED BOTNET TO LIFT GAME SCORES Teenagers convicted of establishing a network of 30,000 compromised Windows PCs used it to generate clicks and thus gain more points in a game called Outwar. Suspects in the case used the Randex worm to establish the botnet used to carry out distributed denial-of-service attacks and steal the CD keys for games, according to Scotland Yard Detective Sergeant Steve Santorelli of the Computer Crime Unit. The investigation began with a tip that virus writers in the United Kingdom were selling the IP addresses of compromised PCs to would-be spammers. Scotland Yard, the FBI, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, assisted by Microsoft, identified two suspects in the United States, one in Canada, and one in the United Kingdom. The main suspects responsible for the botnet were in the United Kingdom and Canada, both aged 15 at the time the offenses were committed. The Register, 21 December 2004 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/21/randex_botnet_fun_and_games/ ***************************************************** EDUPAGE INFORMATION To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your settings, or access the Edupage archive, visit http://www.educause.edu/Edupage/639 Or, you can subscribe or unsubscribe by sending e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SUBSCRIBE Edupage YourFirstName YourLastName To UNSUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SIGNOFF Edupage If you have subscription problems, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***************************************************** OTHER EDUCAUSE RESOURCES The EDUCAUSE Resource Center is a repository for information concerning use and management of IT in higher education. 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