theHighlander writes: “From CIOL: The video gaming industry readies itself for biggest week ever. There are no signs of recession having touched this $20 billion gaming industry. The launch of Xbox and the debut of GameCube make the coming week the most hyped in the 29-year history of the video game business. GameCube at $199 and Xbox at $299 stand to compete with Sony’s PlayStation 2.”

Jeremy Andrews writes: “This week, KernelTrap spoke with Neal Walfield of the GNU/Hurd development team. From their project FAQ, “‘Hurd’, as an acronym, stands for `Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons’. Hird, in turn, stands for `Herd of Interfaces Representing Depth’.
The Hurd is a radical departure from many UNIX concepts. It is a unique and interesting approach to solving many of the problems found in current operating systems. While it’s not yet production grade, it’s evolved enough to be quite usable. The full interview is here.”

theHighlander writes: “From CIOL: Yet another Microsoft Internet Explorer vulnerability that could cause your browser to share your personal details to the world, if exploited. This Internet Explorer vulnerability is based on cookies. Cookies seem to have slipped the Microsoft barricades and have surfaced with Script Injection problem. Here’s how to fortify your security standards.”

Lanie Silerio writes: “Hong Kong, November 9, 2001 – As the market demand for software security continues to rise, messaging solutions pioneer, International Messaging Associates (IMA), announces the release of its latest product, the Internet Exchange Messaging Server (IEMS) 5.1. This messaging solution is designed to address the security and reliability needs of a wider range of customers through its Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) support for IMAP and POP3.”The use of SSL in IMAP and POP3 assures users that all information is encrypted during transit, making it difficult for intruders to eavesdrop on the message content. This guarantees users with a more secure access for message store and protection for their password.
“By adding SSL support in IEMS 5.1, IMA has raised the bar for protecting e-mail against electronic sniffers or hackers who want to tamper or alter sensitive information while in transit,” says Tim Kehres, IMA president. “This has been IMA’s response to the rising demand of our growing number of clients who want to maintain email privacy and confidentiality.”
Protected communications in IEMS 5.1 relies on secret-key cryptography (SKC) for privacy and public-key cryptography (PKC) for key exchange and authentication. The PKC facilitates encryption and decryption, tamper detection and nonrepudiation.
Cryptography, which is widely used to preserve high degree of corporate privacy and security, also includes the use of a digital certificate. The latter proves the authenticity of a server’s certificate and public ID, which should have been issued by a certificate authority (CA) listed in the client’s list of trusted CAs.
SSL support is just one of the many features of IEMS 5.1 that address security issues. Other features include an attachment filter module that scans e-mail attachments for viruses, as well as its anti-spam and anti-virus engines, normally not available in most e-mail solutions. IEMS 5.1 further enhances its capabilities through its capacity to be run in a distributed environment, efficiently spreading computing resources across several networked machines. It can also run on Linux and Windows operating system.
For a limited time only until November 30, 2001, 2000 copies of 15 user licenses will be available to users for FREE. You may register for your free 15-user license at http://www.ima.com/purchase/15user.html. You may also visit our website at www.ima.com for more information.”

Anonymous Reader writes: “This article is the seventh in a LinuxDevices.com series on “Exploring Linux PDA Alternatives” by Jerry Epplin that
explores the history, status, alternative architectures, and future developments of Linux on PDAs and handheld devices. In this installment, Epplin takes a close-up look at the new Sharp Electronics Zaurus SL-5000D Linux/Java PDA developer edition, from both a user and developer point of view.”

Loic Dachary writes: “As published at http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/article2001-10-20-01 .en.html: Over the past few months the SourceForge
development facility, which hosts a large number of Free
Software projects, has changed its policies. Features
for exporting a project from SourceForge have been
removed. The implementation used to be exclusively Free
Software but is now based
on non-free software. Finally, VA Linux has become rather underhanded in their
attempts to grasp exclusive control of contributors’ work.” (VA Linux is a corporate parent of NewsForge.)

– By Grant Gross –

Microsoft’s Bill Gates has claimed credit for a lot of things in his day, a couple of which his company may have actually invented, rather than embraced and extended. But it’s hard to imagine that Gates could actually say, with a straight face, that Microsoft is responsible for creating the Open Source movement. Well, that’s what happened this week.

In response to a question at a shareholders meeting, the chief monopolist claimed that Microsoft made the Open Source movement possible by standardizing computers. There are a lot of flaws in that logic, one being if Gates helped create Open Source, why does he hate it and fear it so?

There were a couple of quick responses to Gates. The Register did a pretty good job of deconstructing his argument by pointing out that PC makers, not Microsoft, standardized the computer. Open Source advocate Eric S. Raymond compared Gates’ claim to Osama bin Laden taking credit for helping to beef up airport security.

In other Microsoft news, its IIS server tops the list of Internet security problems in a “most wanted” list released by the FBI and SANS Institute. Gee, Mr. Gates, might we suggest an Open Source alternative?

Actually, NewsForge’s Robin “roblimo” Miller reports that commercial Apache provider Covalent has found a way to get around the famed IIS security problems: Hide your IIS servers behind the Open Source alternative Apache.

Small Linux crowd gathers

The fifth Annual Linux Showcase and Conference was happening in Oakland, Calif., this weekend. Like the last LinuxWorld Expo, ALS seemed to suffer from small crowds this year. Is it the general economy, the Linux-related economy or travel jitters after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks? Probably a bit of all three.

New and cool

This week, the crew working on the Evolution GNOME groupware suite announced Release Candidate 1 to much acclaim.

Speaking of GNOME, this week was the deadline for announcing a candidacy for the GNOME Foundation board of directors. The announcements started slowly, but picked up steam after Linux kernel hacker Alan Cox announced a candidacy, at least for a short time. Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman also threw his hat into the ring.

New in NewsForge

Stories that appeared first in NewsForge this week:

NewsForge interviewed Cox about his future and the future of Linux after the long-time kernel hacker announced recently he was stepping aside from the maintenance of the 2.4 kernel.

Tina Gasperson reports that InterSect Alliance has developed the first C2-style auditing and event logging subsystem for Linux. These security features could attract more businesses to Linux.

Business columnist Jack Bryar comments on the proposed Microsoft antitrust settlement, and says that if the U.S. government doesn’t restrain the software monopoly other forces, including customers, just might.

Linux Security reports: “On October 6th, 2001, intruders originating from network blocks in the Netherlands used an exploit for the crc32 compensation attack detector vulnerability to remotely compromising a Red Hat Linux system on the UW network running OpenSSH 2.1.1. David Dittrich thoroughly analyses the attack as it happened on a network for which he is responsible.”

An Anonymous Reader writes “Korean manufacturers HNT Co., Ltd. and Hangil Telecom have announced that they are jointly developing a new Linux-based PDA which will be released in the first quarter of 2002. A prototype of the new device will be on display this week at Comdex/Fall, in the Piassa Suite of the Venetian Resort and Casino hotel. This article at LinuxDevices.com has a summary of the features & specs, and a photo, of the new device.”

The BBC asks “Could there ever be a day when computers are genuinely creative, like composers or artists?”